Where are all the ling!

[fishunt]

USED TO LOVE TO GO OUT THIS TIME OF THE YEAR TO FILL UP ON LING! IS ANYBODY CATCHING ANY LING AT ALL THIS WINTER! I AM JUST NOT SEEING ANY LING REPORTS ANYMORE. SO SAD!

[frugalfisherman]

Dogfish ate them.

[bulletbob]

Many members here will call me a doom and gloomer, and get all pissed off, but IMHO we will be seeing bag limits and seasons on Ling soon... They get hit hard all year by recs with the restrictions on all the other species, and the draggers don't give them much of a break either. i see them on ice all year up here in ny state, 250 miles from the ocean. at big prices.. they are marketed here as whiting at times, and hake at others

The fall and winter seasons that used to be hot for Ling are just a shadow of years past.. Now they are more of a welcome bycatch during the spring/ summer Blackfish/seabass/early season fluke seasons... Ling were caught for decades on fairly shallow open bottom, clam beds, along channels, in mud, sand, rocks, wherever there was food for them.. Today, fishermen think of them as a "deep water" wreck/ reef/rock fish.. Thats only because the numbers are so far down historically.. We always caught them right on sand/mud bottom from the shorline to maybe 50-70 FOW from Jan until early June and then again starting in Nov.. It was an 8 month season inshore, right to the shoreline jetties at times,and then in summer, the deep water wrecks would yield big numbers of BIG Ling.. Times have changed drastically for the Squirrel/Red Hake, and I fear the impending imposition of pretty severe catch restrictions one day before very long.. The numbers are simply no longer there... I think they still get a lot of them in New England, not sure, but in the NY Bight, I am not very optimistic... bob

Again no one wants to hear it but until you remove the commercial pressure from every &^%^$%# species in the ocean, they are all subject to over harvest and being depleted. The Russians and small mesh netters DESTROYED the ling and whiting fishery along with the cod and mackerel many years ago and it's never rebounded and never will without addressing the continuous beating they take from commercial pressure. Every fishery with today's technologies are in danger.

[bulletbob]

Originally Posted by dakota560

Again no one wants to hear it but until you remove the commercial pressure from every &^%^$%# species in the ocean, they are all subject to over harvest and being depleted. The Russians and small mesh netters DESTROYED the ling and whiting fishery along with the cod and mackerel many years ago and it's never rebounded and never will without addressing the continuous beating they take from commercial pressure. Every fishery with today's technologies are in danger.

I agree to a point dakota... We still had nice fishing in deep water in the Mud Hole and on wrecks for many years even after the 80's and 90's.. I started noticing the decline even in deep water maybe 5-6 years ago... I think they started getting hit too hard year round even in rocky areas and on deep water wrecks by head boats and charters because they were the "only game in town" at times.. They just don't get any breaks these days... same thing with Blackfish.. Tog were not fished for all winter years ago the way they are today.. Now the ones that stay active are the only fish available from Dec through the winter.. It seems when one species goes down others follow because of added pressure.. I don't know what the answer is.. There;s just too much pressure on too few fish.. bob

[Ling Slinger]

Dogs and to a lesser extent pout, scallopers and habitat shifting due to warmer water temps.

Draggers took their hit but that was in the 70s/80s/early 90s and ling had a chance to recover, which they did in the 2000s. Now it's these other factors in my opinion

Originally Posted by bulletbob

I agree to a point dakota... We still had nice fishing in deep water in the Mud Hole and on wrecks for many years even after the 80's and 90's.. I started noticing the decline even in deep water maybe 5-6 years ago... I think they started getting hit too hard year round even in rocky areas and on deep water wrecks by head boats and charters because they were the "only game in town" at times.. They just don't get any breaks these days... same thing with Blackfish.. Tog were not fished for all winter years ago the way they are today.. Now the ones that stay active are the only fish available from Dec through the winter.. It seems when one species goes down others follow because of added pressure.. I don't know what the answer is.. There;s just too much pressure on too few fish.. bob

Back in the 60's and 70's there were more party boats and recreational boats targeting whiting and ling than there are today. It's not even close. Every port Highlands, Belmar, Point Pleasant had bottom fishing boats targeting them in the spring and fall during the day as well as a number of boats which ran the long gone "Magic Hour" trips from 3-9 during the fall. Who remebers the fishery every year at the cedars with flounder and ling when they came in to spawn. Every party boat in the highlands was in on that fishery to start the spring season. It NEVER effected the biomass! And until the Russians cleaned the bottom of them they were as abundant as any fish I've ever seen. For anyone who isn't old enough to have experienced those days, you have no idea how tremendous a fishery it was year in year out. The numbers were staggering. Both ling and whiting were both wiped out in a few years by commercial pressure. And while the commercial pressure has been reduced because the fishery was destroyed, it hasn't stopped. I've seen on at least a half dozen occasions in the last five years heading to the canyons acres of small whiting and ling floating on the surface from continued dragging. These are 5-6 inch fish which aren't marketable, dead discard by commercial vessels. The biomass was destroyed and we still allow unlimited netting! In my opinion, this has nothing to do with climate change, habitat change or anything else. These fish have very predictable habits and are an easy target for today's technology and are being wiped out one species after another.