20+ pound, 34" lingcod caught with a handline from a sea kayak

SJ Ling.

Sweet.

Why aren't you lipping it?!?!?

Wuss!!   

Nice fish..  Looking forward to seeing you use that handline in person at ORC.

Why aren't you lipping it?!?!?

Wuss!!   

yeah I know. I guess I've spent to much time learning about fish. I try not to touch them at all and make the encounter as smooth and easy on the fish as possible.

Unless I'm really hungry. Then they meet Mr. War Club. 

Nice one!

Beauty of a fish there Jason!

Oh yea, that reminds me, i saw a cool handline setup on NCKA, don't know if you check that site, here it is.

http://www.norcalkayakanglers.com/index.php/topic,24357.0.html

Thanks fellas. In 5 days I only fished for 10 minutes while clients were napping on the beach. I guess the sun shines on a dogs arse sometimes too!

I'll post a full report soon. I have over 300 pics!

First of all, very nice fish.


Did you actually weigh it?  A 34" ling usually runs about 14-16 lbs unless there's an 6 lb ling in it's stomach at the time.   Twenty plus pound fish kick in around the 40 inch mark.

Brian

No I didn't. I was judging the weight by how much my shoulder was burning. My initial estimate was 15-20, but I like saying 20 better.

I also measured crudely. The tape on my paddle marks 26" and 36". On the first measurement, he measured over the 36" limit. The second he curled a bit and looked a couple of inches short.

As I was just plain happy to get a nice one and wasn't planning on bonking him, I didn't care that much for precision measurement and let him go before he'd spent too much time out of the water. My other guide with the camera and the clients were 400 yds away napping on the beach, so he was out for a pretty long time before they could respond to my call and paddle out to me. I'll post a full report soon.

He did puke up about 3-4lbs of garbled ling.

I've got other shots that show the girth and length better that we may be able to accurately estimate weight from, but I'm saving those for publication.

measuring on my monitor from the inside edge of the tape closer to the blade on my paddle shaft in some other pics, It's hard to say within an inch, but it looks to be closer to 36" I don't know exactly, but it sure was fun!

Hey Jason,

No need to get defensive.  It is a very nice fish and I'm not saying it wasn't a 20 lb fish.  I'm just saying it probably wasn't 34 inches and 20+ lbs at the same time (without a 6 lb ling in its stomach).  I'll try and dig up a lingcod length-weight chart.

Brian

not defensive, just trying to figure how I could tell for sure.

I have a tape and a digital scale in both my yak/yak trailer and my Sled.  Otherwise the only thing that gets measured accurately is the fisherman's ego.