FANTASTIC!! what an opener it was. fished the afternoon on Thursday near Stuart island. i got one 26.5" about 3 pm on a white/blue jig. my buddy only got rockfish...but that's alright. water was pretty calm and the sun came out beautifully in the evening. stayed the night in the islands, as to be on top of the ling bright and early. Today (the 2nd) hit the water a little late..about 9 am. tried a couple places that produced last season, trying to get a lingcod in the boat for my buddy (me too, but i already had one yesterday), no luck. we tried a variety of jigs and jelly in dropoffs from 40-140ft. nothing. he had the idea of hitting an old reliable spot within a mile of Canada, good call on his part!!. tides were perfect at noon, on the first drift from kelp to 120 i hit MAJOR fish in about 60ft. it felt like a snag, but it would head-shake every minute or so. it got caught up in the kelp and i thought for sure i was going to loose it, but after 10 min she finally surfaced. my buddy did an excellent net job as i landed a personal best 37" er!! (first pic) biggest fish i have ever caught!! don't have a scale, but must have been 15-20lbs. AWESOME!!
now I'm feeling a little bad, because i have two and my buddy has been skunked. we wanted to get back to port early, so we decided a couple more drifts over the same spot. on drift number two...BAM...my buddy gets fish on (80ft)!! nice, i grab the net. he says it's kinda small, but he thinks it's a keeper (26"). well....shows what he knows...he pulls up a 2nd best ever 37"er as well!! wow.two 15-20 lbs within a half hour at the same spot...one of the best days ever for me. so by 12:30, we were on our way back. saw many boats out there, but none with fish.

NOTE: also got stopped my the Coast Guard on Thursday, and let me tell you...they were some pretty friendly guys just lookin out for us little guys in the 16'er (wanted to make sure we had our life jackets). very great crew on the 24' stabicraft with three 275hp motors. check the saltwater lingcod thread for more exciting ling chat!!

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