State encourages anglers to catch unwanted ling from Flaming Gorge
Posted: Thursday, January 31, 2008 12:00 am
Story and photos by WES SMALLING
Star-Tribune staff writer
FLAMING GORGE - By day, a whiskered fiend hides from the light curled up under rocks at the bottom of the lake. As the sun goes down, the slender-bodied predator uncoils, emerging from the depths to feed. With an insatiable appetite for fresh meat, it cruises the depths, gobbling down crayfish, minnows, trout eggs and adult kokanee salmon - anything and everything it can.
Depending on where you're from, you may know the serpent-like marauder as a ling, lingcod, burbot, lawyer or eelpout. Whatever name you call it, in southwestern Wyoming's Flaming Gorge Reservoir it's a menace, a non-native invader that's been wreaking havoc on one of the state's best trout fisheries since at least the late 1990s.
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Dusk descends over the frozen lake Friday as Robert Keith drags a sled full of ice-fishing gear across the ice. Keith, a fisheries biologist for the Wyoming Department of Game and Fish, is a man on a mission: to put as big a dent as possible in the out-of-control population of non-native ling that has infested Flaming Gorge.
He's armed with six tip-up rigs and a sled full of gear, and accompanied by a small army of friends, co-workers and UW graduate students he got together for a weekend of ice fishing.
Keith is trying to get the word out to Wyoming's anglers: Come to Flaming Gorge for the great ling fishing, and keep and eat every darn one you catch.
Someone illegally stocked ling in a reservoir along the Green River or in the river itself probably in the late 1990s, Keith says. The population of ling in Flaming Gorge is now growing at an alarming rate and biologists worry what impact the predators will have on the lake's trout and kokanee.
In an effort to get some control over their soaring numbers, the state raised the bag limit on ling from 50 to unlimited this year at Flaming Gorge and other waters west of the Continental Divide. That means an all-out assault on ling: no daily bag limits and up to six poles or tip-ups are allowed per angler during ice fishing season.
There's one snag though. Ling aren't a popular sportfish with anglers.
Keith hopes to change that, but it's not easy convincing Wyoming anglers to keep and eat something they may have previously known as a junkfish, which is another one of its names. It's common for trout anglers who catch a ling to chop up the unwanted fish into bait or just throw it back.
For a long time, Flaming Gorge has been a trophy lake trout fishery that also has great fishing for kokanee salmon, rainbow trout, brown trout and smallmouth bass. Like ling, those fish aren't native to the reservoir, which is behind an impoundment on the Green River, but the Department manages the lake as a trophy trout fishery.
"These ling throw a monkey wrench into all that," Keith says. "Ling are pretty close to a top-end predator so we know they eat pretty much anything and everything in the reservoir."
They devour crayfish and minnows - the food sources of the lake's trout - and prey on trout and salmon, and the eggs of those species. There's no telling how much having too many ling will hurt the lake's historically great trout fishing, but some effect can be expected. A ling is an eating machine. A two pounder can swallow a 9-inch kokanee.
Net surveys indicate the lake's ling population doubles every year. "Their numbers are just staggering for how quickly they've come in," Keith says. A ling can live for 20 years and an adult female can lay 250,000 to 500,000 eggs per year.
"That kind of reproductive capacity is really scary."
Other nearby waters have been invaded too, including Fontenelle Reservoir, Big Sandy Reservoir and the Green River.
Ling are native to the northern United States. In Wyoming their native range is east of the Continental Divide in places such as the Wind River and waters of the Bighorn Mountains. Oddly enough, in places where ling actually belong in Wyoming the fish aren't doing so well. Wyoming Game and Fish is in the unusual situation of trying to improve ling populations on one side of the Divide, while trying to eradicate them from the other.
"When a fish like the ling is in its native habitat there are natural checks and balances, elements such as predator-prey relationships, that keep them in control," Keith says. "They're actually struggling in a lot of their native range and here we are where they're just going berserk."
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The sun sinks behind the horizon and the ice pops and groans with the dropping temperature. Before too long, a shout cuts through the fading light. The holler comes from Scott Carleton, a graduate student at UW, who has the night's first ling on the line. He reels it in and lifts it through the hole. The slender fish writhes on the ice, curling and uncurling its slender body like a snake.
Simply put, it's a weird looking fish.
Carleton, a longtime trout fisherman, has never caught a ling before.
"A friend of mine told me he thinks ling is the best tasting freshwater fish next to walleye," he says, sounding unsure what to believe. "I guess I'll find out."
Keith, for one, is a believer. And 600,000 Alaskans can't be wrong, can they? In that state, ling are often referred to as poor man's lobster because, ugly as they are, they're considered excellent table fare.
Ling are the only freshwater cod in the world, Keith says, so cutting up a fresh-caught ling for bait is like throwing away a prime seafood fillet from the supermarket. Most ling that anglers catch in Flaming Gorge are about 20 inches long and 2 pounds, but much bigger ones are sometimes caught.
Ling are voracious eaters at night so when the bite's on they'll have you running across the ice in the dark from tip-up to tip-up reeling them in.
Keith knows they will never be rid of all the ling in Flaming Gorge. But in other areas where ling are struggling, biologists list overfishing as a factor in their demise, so encouraging anglers to go after them in Flaming Gorge is worth a shot.
"Can't hurt," he says with a shrug.
"One upside to this whole thing is they are good eating. They're actually a really neat fish. They just don't belong here."
* Fish at night: Anglers sometimes catch ling during the day but being nocturnal they're much easier to catch at night when they're the most active. Start ice fishing at sunset and try glow jigs tipped with a small piece of sucker meat or a dead minnow. One of the best methods is to use multiple tip-ups, letting the baits sit still just off the bottom.
* Special regs: A Special Winter Ice Fishing Provision allows up to six poles or tip-ups per angler at Flaming Gorge and several other waters listed in the state regulations booklet. When using more than two lines, only one hook is allowed per line and the angler's name must be on each pole or tip-up.
* Keep 'em all: There is no bag limit on ling at Flaming Gorge and many other waters west of the Continental Divide. In their native waters east of the Divide, there are much tighter bag limits on ling. Refer to the state fishing regulations booklet for details.
* Ling cuisine: Skin and cook them like you would sole fillets: sauteed, grilled or baked.
* Lunker ling: The state record ling was 44 inches long and weighed 19 pounds, 4 ounces. K.E. Mooreland caught it in Pilot Butte Reservoir in 1965.
* Reverse life cycle: Unlike most freshwater fish, ling spawn during the dead of winter and are more or less dormant during the warm months of summer.
* Hard to stop: A ling can live 20 years and an adult female can lay 250,000 to 500,000 eggs per year.
* What's in a name: Ling are also referred to as burbot, lingcod, eelpout, lawyer, junkfish and poor man's lobster.