Just got back with Carl C. for lings at Neah Bay. I'll be writing an article soon, but let me say the fishing was great! Tons of black sea bass and lots of lings tossed in (though not too many keepers). One thing of interest - the biggest lings were caught by anglers using kelp greenlings (live). Isn't that illegal? Says so in the regs - "possess or use live fish for game fish bait" is illegal. I saw nothing under special regs to think otherwise. Hmmm.

Mike,

How were you fishing for the bass and lings? I made a couple of trips there in the late 80's and early 90's tossing 1/2 oz jigheads and rubber worms for them. Got kinda sporty at times when a ling hit. A couple of them just took off running and broke me off. Ended up thinking a short 12 inch shock tippet would keep them from biting me off.. but didn't have a solution to the rocks. We used to use bass rods and about 14 lb test. At times it was nonstop fun.

Mike, I've heard of them doing that with live herring as well. I think the concern about live bait is that folks can 'accidently' introduce a species to a water (usually lakes are the concern) that they didn't intend to manage for (kinda like the 'midnight biologist' issue). The other problem is when folks use sport fish that are under the legal size as bait. Like a 10 inch king/shaker that is used for ling bait. I really doubt they give you a ticket for using linve greenling or sculpin, but I personally wouldn't do it without asking first.

Sounds like you had a good time. It's been years since I've been out there. Thinking of heading to Sekui this summer for some king or silver action...

I will be posting a story, I think tommorrow. Regarding the live bait, I have found out that since ling are food fish and not game fish you are allowed to use live bait. Although I don't think you can use game fish as bait.

Hey Mike, i couldn't get your email adress to show up on here so i could talk to you about the Mack trip. Looks like this Saturday might be nice. We went up March 30th and 10 minutes into it i landed a 9.5lber and a 3 pounder about an hour later and then 6 hours of nothing. But the water was 39 degrees which i think had alot to do with it, not to mention the wind. But we read fish everywhere. So drop me a line and we'll talk about it.

Gentlemen. They don't want you to use live bait in our lakes. Such as Shiners as they will over take a lake if they get loose. The state wants to be the only ones that plant our lakes.

So the only thing that you can use is what is natural to the area. Such as worms,grass hoppers,processed eggs,power bait,water dogs,etc.

So if you use what is out in the Sound for bait I guess it is legal. I used to use small crabs when I was a kid along with clams and pileing worms and they,the bait was alive.

So when I was fishing small feather jigs for rockfish up in Friday Harbor and hooked a small one that was then nabbed by a big ling, was I using live bait? Hummmmm.

Saw a bunch of guys up in Neah Bay using shooting heads with two flies hitting the black sea bass. They did great, and often had two fish on.