Lingcod Fishing in Seattle, WA

Lingcod live in Puget Sound year-round, so you are never fishing an empty house. The concentration you want comes when mature fish push onto nearshore rocky reefs to spawn and males settle in to guard egg masses. January stands out, February through April holds that peak, and numbers taper through summer and fall as fish spread back to deeper structure. Plan a winter or early spring trip and you are fishing the shallow rockpiles when the biomass is stacked on them.

We cover 56 spots around Seattle that hold lingcod. Admiralty Inlet at Point Wilson and the Edmonds Oil Tanks give you hard structure in moving water. Blake Island at South Point, Jefferson Head, Apple Tree Point at Kingston and the Kingston Reef inside Appletree Cove all sit within an easy run. Closer to town, Duwamish Head in Elliott Bay and Meadow Point put fish within reach of a short trip.

Current runs the day here. Fish the slack. From dead slack up to about 0.5 knots you can hold bottom and work a jig properly, and by roughly 2.5 knots the water takes your gear away from the rock. Time your drops either side of high or low water. Jigging is the main game, metal jigs, bucktail jigs and leadhead jigs with swimbaits worked near bottom in 40 to 120 feet. Back it up with live greenling or herring on a dropper, or drift large soft plastics to find the rockpiles.