When I listened to my voice mail on Sunday, July 10, the first message went like this, "We scored 50 lingcod on the New Sea Angler today, that's 25 full limits of lings averaging about 15 pounds each. Our top fish was a 41.5 pound monster that inhaled a jig bar. You've got to get up here, Cal; the coastal bottom fishing is absolutely fantastic," exclaimed Captain Rick Powers.

When one of the best saltwater skippers in the state leaves you a message like that, there is only one thing to do... get to his boat as soon as you possibly can! Unfortunately, we were in the middle of producing issue 2416 and there was no way I could get to Bodega Bay before the end of the following week. After touching base with the Fish Sniffer's publisher Allen Bonslett, I called Rick and booked both of us on the New Sea Angler's July 14 trip.

When Allen and I rolled into the Bodega Harbor parking lot at 5:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, I was full of anticipation and couldn't wait to get on the water. I'm an avid saltwater angler and there are few things I enjoy more than jigging for lingcod.

Once everyone was aboard, Powers introduced himself to the anglers and told us that we would be making a 2-hour run north of Bodega. Fifteen minutes later we were out of the harbor and headed north.

The next thing I knew, Powers voice was crackling over the public address system, telling us to get ready to drop our gear. I'd snoozed during the run north and now I was ready for action. After some maneuvering, Powers liked what he saw on the sonar and told us to drop our rigs.

Allen and I were using 4 foot long 50 pound test leaders tipped with 8 ounce bar jigs. About 2 feet above the jigs, we placed a 7/0 octopus hook on a dropper that sported a 5 inch swim tail grub. Allen was using a hand wrapped rod, balanced with a Newell S338-5 reel, spooled with 25 pound test monofilament. My rig consisted of a 7' Fenwick Saltstik SSGC 1870 rod teamed with an Ambassadeur 7000 Big Game reel filled with 65 pound test Berkley Fireline XDS.

Within seconds of dropping the baits, there were calls for the gaff as anglers all around the boat began battling quality rockfish and lingcod. It didn't take Allen long to reel in his first fish, a husky vermilion. I followed with a tasty China rockfish.

For the next several minutes, Allen was on fire, landing 4 big golden eye and canary rockfish, all of which had to be released. For the balance of that first drift, I hooked several fish, but couldn't get any of them to the boat.

On the successive drifts, the hot action continued. As soon as I felt my jig tick the bottom on the second drift, a fish took it with a hard rush. Setting the hook I worked the reel hard, horsing the fish away from the rocks.

The fish was very strong and it took me a few minutes to work it to the surface. When the fish materialized out of the darkness I could see that it was a 10 plus pound lingcod, so I called for the gaff. Seconds later, Team Fish Sniffer had their first ling in the boat.

I followed up with a heavy golden eye that I released unharmed before landing my second ling of the day. A few minutes later, Allen brought his first lingcod over the rail, adding it to his growing sack of big rockfish.

Most of the lings caught on the trip ran between 7 and 12 pounds, although several larger fish were landed. Ed Woltkamp of Galt nailed a ling that weighed about 20 pounds, Duane Herman of Healdsburg also nailed a big ling that went about 20 pounds, and Mark Fichtlerer of Novato landed a limit of lings into the high teens.

Throughout the day, Captain Powers kept lamenting that the lingcod action would be much better if the water wasn't off color. From my perspective I couldn't imagine the action being much hotter, since we had lings on the hook all day. Several times we had 3 or 4 hanging at once!

On the last drift of the day, Allen hooked a hard fighting fish in about 100 feet of water that I expected to be a lingcod, but it turned out to be an impressive Cabezon. When Allen and I counted our fish at the end of the day, we both had limits of lings and 8 rockfish apiece. That's two rockfish short of limits, but we each released 15 to 20 keeper rockfish in hopes of landing something bigger.

Overall, the boat ended up with full limits of rockfish, including over 100 large vermilions and 80 big coppers, in addition to 44 lingcod for the 30 anglers aboard. What really struck me about the trip was the outstanding quality of rockfish we caught. "The vermilions we caught today averaged about 5 pounds and ranged up to 8, that's just unheard of in the shallow water we were fishing," confided Powers.

If you'd like to battle some big rockfish and lingcod, drop everything and head to Bodega Bay. The bite is red hot and the fish are of exceptional quality.

To book a trip on the New Sea Angler, give Rick Powers a call at (707) 875-3344. For other boats booking rockfish and lingcod trips along the northern and and central California coast, review the sportfishing section of the Fish Sniffer magazine and this website.