Touting the release of my new fish cookbook, The Lady and the Lingcod, it occurred to me that I now had a good excuse to host a tournament — something in late summer on one of my favorite vessels, Queen of Hearts. After consulting with Captain Bob Ingles, I chartered the boat for August 23. Thus was born, the first annual “Lady and the Lingcod Shallow-water, Light-tackle, Limited Entry Tournament.” While the major targets of this competition would be lingcod, rockfish and cabezone, I also decided to add halibut to the list of eligible species. It seemed to me at the time to be a long shot that a flattie would actually hit the deck. Boy was I wrong!
Twenty anglers, who had each coughed up a C-note for the day’s trip, filed onto the boat on a beautiful Saturday morning. As John, our deckhand, recited the safety spiel, Ken Stone was busy setting up to record the event on video. Capt. Bob signaled for our departure, the lines were thrown, and we throttled up, leaving the harbor heading south out of Pillar Point.
As sponsor and officiator I had not entered the contest myself. However, I elected to fish, staking claim to a piece of rail adjacent to Bob’s side entrance to the wheelhouse. From there I had a good vantage point to see most of the action on the bow, the starboard side and a good portion of the stern. Beth Smith had obviously had her morning coffee and was pumping up the port side with her ample enthusiasm. While running to our first drift, I noticed Robin King and Ray Kenny fondling their bait, octopus, the highly prized lingcod candy. Squid was also made available to those who wanted to enhance jigs or teasers.
Lines had barely settled on the bottom at our first stop when several people hooked up. The first ling of the day came up in the starboard corner of the stern. A nice vermilion then popped over the side to my right. Within minutes the port corner went into action. What I thought was going to be a worthy ling finally ventured into gaffing range. Whoa! Halibut! Nick Dennis beamed as remarks of “nice butt” acknowledged his catch. I yelled down to him, “It’s a good thing I thought to include those.” Oh well, I figured, the occasional flatfish made a rare appearance. Little did we know what this omen would bring.
Someone on the bow was now pulling on a nice fish, and much to my surprise, another round brown form made its way onto the boat. The two butts had barely been sacked when I looked to my right and saw Dennis landing yet another one even larger than his first. I turned to Bob and mumbled something about going over a sand patch while taking a peek at the fish finder. Hmmm... rocky bottom. It’s unusual to consistently find halibut and lingcod sharing the same piece of turf. The halibut generally prefer sand. But no sand patch was showing on the screen when Pat Kenny brought up another flattie.
Bob, in the meantime, dashed out to assist Scott Breidenbach, who had engaged something in a tug of war. Jokes were made about setting up a bucket as a fighting chair, readying a back up rig and the prospect of needing two gaffs. Scott was wielding an extremely light outfit and had finessed a nice halibut almost into range before realizing he had bound up his reel. He dispensed a few yards of line and resumed the fight. Before long, Bob stuck the fish. “Ooooh, barn door!”
Ray and Robin each worked lingcod to the surface. Robin’s short fish disgorged two octopuses prior to release. Another nice ling inhaled a piece of iron and was landed a few yards away. Pat shouted that he had two lings following his lure to the surface. They hovered near his squid-tipped jig for a few moments before darting back to the depths. Well, I guess at least we’re out of the butt patch.
For a change of scenery, we passed over a gopher hole where several of these tasty rockfish were captured. Robin scored a double hook-up, that unfortunately turned out to be a pair of starfish! Elsewhere, a chartreuse B-2 squid produced a quality vermilion. “Hot Stick” Nick caused commotion again as he subdued a hefty green lingcod. Beth added a nice cabezone to her sack as Doug Gober commenced to drag up a large bottom dweller. Before we could identify what it was, it gave him the slip. In between all this action I had managed to lose two nice fish, one of them taking a specially rigged swimbait into the rocks to part my line.
Shouts of “China”, “Bolina” and “Gopher” echoed up to me as I kicked back a short lingcod. Five anglers hooked up between me and the stern. John flicked another halibut into their midst and a few seconds later it was joined by a lingcod. Wow! We’re still catching butts and lings in the same neighborhood. Cynthia Simpson continued the streak with a hefty halibut. Soon, another flurry of butts was hitting the deck again. I lost track of how many we’d landed, becoming acutely aware that I had not scored one yet. To keep things interesting, Beth landed a different flatfish, a five pound starry flounder.
I put the kiss of death on a cab before trotting around to check out some more action around the boat. More lingcod bearing mouths full of iron were lifted over the rail. Ray brought up a rockfish/lingcod double, and then bagged a butt. By this time, we were noticing that keeping a bounty of nice lings and so many halibut in sacks was beginning to be a problem. So John broke out the numbered metal clips normally used to tag salmon, and he began snapping them onto the halibut and stashing them in the fish boxes. I didn’t see any halibut weighing less than 12 pounds, with the majority above 18.
Back in the port corner, the chartreuse B-2 squid had enticed another feisty halibut, which made numerous runs at the surface before finally submitting to impalement. It was no wonder, though; it was fought on 14 pound test! This fight epitomizes the true spirit of light-tackle fishing, and I was glad to find so many participants embracing this technique.
As we ran back uphill for one final pass, Ken and I did a little reconnaissance by peering into bags with the video camera. Everyone appeared to be doing quite well. We flipped open one of the fish boxes to survey its contents. As I grabbed one of the larger halibut to hold up for filming, its neighbor suddenly started to flop wildly and I let out a shriek. Ok, flattie pulled a good one over on Bajabev!
A large ling was wrenched from the bottom and seized at the surface. This fish would have probably won the tournament if it hadn’t been for the bumper crop of halibut. And speaking of butts, the tally was still climbing.
Now Nick was putting the hurt on a huge fish, which turned out to be the top halibut of the day weighing in at 26 pounds. By now he was being heralded with chants of “Butt Boy, Butt Boy.” In the end, Nick would also take third place with a 24 pound halibut.
The decks of the Queen of Hearts were awash with rail-to-rail butts during the weigh in. Scott’s hard-fought 25 pound butt won him second place. In all, 18 halibut had been caught. A total of 33 lingcod ranged up to 18 pounds, as well as a respectable assortment of rockfish rounding out the final catch.
Awards were issued in the inner harbor. Bob handed Nick Dennis the first place trophy, and I handed him a check for $600. The $200 second prize went to Scott Breidenbach. We cruised back to the dock with a bunch of full sacks and happy anglers. Next year I’m not taking any chances — I’m going to call the tournament Bajabev’s potluck.
