RELY ON LING
They’ll provide rod-bending action while you’re waiting for those prime winter cod to put in an appearance
They could be your biggest winter fish.
Iconic species and big fish may well be what we all aspire to catch, but it’s our regular fishing that keeps us going by filling in the gaps between encounters with the more memorable stuff. Fish such as bull huss along the west coast, or ling on the east coast, are staples to many people, and often the biggest fish most anglers regularly catch. Not exactly a spectacular species, ling go quietly about their business of keeping North Sea anglers occupied, and, more to the point, happy. It’s also one fish that looks to be bucking the trend of availability by reliably being there when called upon.
Since the shift from fishing with pirks and muppets to shads, particularly baited muppets and pirks, we are not comparing like with like any more in trying to assess how many ling are present now compared to what we used to see.
Anglers tend not to bait shads because there isn’t any need. While shads do catch ling, these are more occasional than they would previously have been, with cod their intended targets. Yet still there are plenty of ling, and good ones too, being caught, which suggests this is one of the quieter success stories.
Like most fish, if you specifically tailor your bait and tactics to meet a particular set of feeding requirements, it makes sense that you will be in a better position to catch more of them. For ling, this means bait on the bottom. Unfortunately, when drift-fishing hard ground and wrecks, which is where most North Sea ling tend to be holed up, this tactic brings with it special considerations if tackle losses are not to make bait fishing more trouble that it’s worth.
STRONG AND SIMPLE
My earliest recollections of specifically targeting ling go back to the early days of wreck fishing with people like Dave Ellworthy and Geordie Dickson, out of Plymouth, and, more especially, Dougal Lane based on Guernsey. Back then, an occasional one would grab an artificial eel when it first hit the bottom, or take a baited pirk.
If you wanted your day to be dominated by ling in the 20-30lb bracket, though, as fast as you could get a bait down in front of them – which is literally how it was back then, strong and simple was the proven approach – little has changed.
In terms of heavy, it’s not the tackle but the strength of the mono used to make up the trace. One look at the ling’s dentistry should explain the need for that requirement. You could hardly describe these as fussy fish, and charter boat skippers are always functional. I suppose they witness more than their fair share of people faffing about and losing fish that really should be seeing the inside of the boat, so they tend to go in for a bit of overkill, recommending traces be tied from 100lb mono. But I know they can be beaten on less because I catch a lot of these on over-the-counter pre-tied rigs on 60-80lb mono.
EASY RIG
It doesn’t come much simpler than a length of mono with a single short blood loop dropper tied close to the lead and a size 8/0 hook loaded either with squid, or preferably, if its available on the day, a fillet of fresh mackerel. This is exactly what ling want, and, importantly, it’s also quick, cheap and easy to re-tie when the inevitable hang-up takes the lot.
Fishing with braid does help you feel for potential snags and, if you’re quick enough, to lift them out. But ling want their food trundling along at the bottom, regardless of whether it is snaggy and tackle hungry, that’s where the bait has to be.
You can tie the lead on with a piece of lighter nylon or use an elastic band threaded through the loop a few times to act as a rotten bottom to sacrifice the lead weight and not the entire trace, which would otherwise part the lower breaking strain mainline. It can work, but can end up sacrificing sinkers too readily in situations where a bit more pull might have cleared the snag.
The honest answer is, you will never know, and what if it’s the hook instead of the lead that goes to ground? For me, the jury’s still out. It depends on what you are fishing over, because wrecks are far less forgiving than ground, and whether the price of a few leads is outweighed by the potential to catch more fish.
I mentioned over-the-counter traces, and from a personal point of view, because I find physically working any type of lure for hours too much, these fulfil my needs nicely. I often fish with a string of three Fat Boy Hokkais when drifting over ground. It’s an age thing, on top of which, I don’t want to be carting off bin bags full of fish any more.
Baited with ‘compromise’ sized pieces of squid or mackerel, I can work them sink and draw in the hope of cod when I want to, then let them bounce along the bottom for ling while I rest my arms, rather than specialising in one or the other with either shads or just bait.
Ling are an all-year species, but the bigger fish show in winter when many anglers seek cod. Of course, we’d all love to be bagging up on prime cod, but in the real world, most days for most people are anything but that. Let’s make the most of what there is, approach it accordingly, and enjoy it.