Ling on or near the Ottawa

[Papaclaude]

Anyone ever catch any good size (5 lbs+) ling on the Ottawa or near the city? I've caught several small ones while fishing for walleye, but never anything of size. They have to be in there. I'm not asking for a particular spot, but what depth, type of structure, etc.

When I lived in NE Ontario, we used to get a lot of them through the ice, and you could pretty much fill up your boat if you wanted to when they came up the river to gorge on smelts as soon as the ice left the mouths of the rivers.

[smitty55]

All the Ling I've caught in the Ottawa came from Shirley's while Pickeral fishing. Usually the bite slows right down once the Ling move in so I've never really stayed late and targeted them. I did stay late one night intentionally, moved into some current on a rocky bottom and around 8:30 and caught one around that size followed by an equal sized Walleye a few minutes later. Later in Feb they come in shallow to spawn in numbers. Biggest one I ever got came out of 25fow while fishing Pickeral on Constant lake one day.
If I was to target large Ling I would fish later, try deeper earlier and use larger baits on bigger jigs to pound the bottom to make noise and stir it up. Glow jigs are a good choice and keep them charged. You may want to find some current too.


Cheers

[Papaclaude]

Thanks. When we used to fish for them intentionally, we would use a smelt on bottom. I may give it a try a little later on Walleye Bay at Petrie, fishing until well after dark.

[CCLad]

We don't target Ling but we do catch them fairly frequently. We get them while targeting Walleye. There are big ones in the Ottawa. Here is one my friend brought up last year. Picture doesn't quite do it justice. It's tail is halfway up the guy's forearm, he couldn't get his hand around the tail end of it to hold for the pic and the stove pipe in the back ground is 8" in diameter. It was every bit of 8 plus LBS...

Ling S.Bay 2019.jpg (588.86 KiB) Viewed 8566 times

[Papaclaude]

Thanks for the pic. How deep is the water you fish, and what type of structure?

That is the size I was after. We used to get dozens that size in the very early spring.

[CCLad]

Shirleys Bay is a prett flat-shallow area. I usually fish in 12-14 feet of water. That ling was caught pretty far out from the launch. past the north end of the causeway..

[scarkner]

I have certianly caught some big ones (28 inches plus) at Shirleys, although for some reason my luck with them the last two years has been terrible... not sure what I am doing wrong, but i have certainly lost my touch...

[CCLad]

We are at a ling a trip pace these days...