fish · The Trophy Room
Lingcod
Prehistoric, bad-tempered, and delicious — the lingcod is the apex ambush predator of the Pacific reef. Not a true cod at all but a giant greenling, all head and teeth, it slams a jig like it's personally offended. The short strict season is exactly why there are still big ones guarding the pinnacles.
Identifying
- huge mouth full of backward-canted fangs; long mottled body
- color ranges from grey-brown to copper to (in maybe one in five) a startling blue-green flesh that cooks white
- single long dorsal fin with a notch; large fan-like pectorals
- ambush build — broad head, tapering body, made to lunge from a ledge
Facts
- famously cannibal — a hooked lingcod will often be found clamped onto a rockfish you were reeling
- fish the rocky structure at slack tide when the current lets your jig hang in the strike zone
- strict minimum and maximum size slots protect the big breeding females — know the regs before the opener
