The Outdoor Line Forum

This may sound stupid. I'm somewhat new to fishing especially offshore, but I recently went to Westport with the intension of getting rockfish and if we're lucky a ling or two. I have no gps points to follow just winging it. In the past I have been on a few charters where we killed rockfish no problem and did well on Lings (seemed very easy). So we went out there and couldn't keep the lings off our hooks, between 3 of us we caught 15-20 legal lings and not one rockfish all day. We tried jigs, herring, flies, and some old squid. What should we be looking for out there depth, structure, and is it different at different times of the year? Everywhere I look talks about fishing along the jetty and I dont want to do that. I have a boat and just looking for some tips to maximize our trips out to the coast.

I hear you DH and welcome aboard!
If you've been out to Westport you know just how wide open it can get out there!
Doing it from your own boat is very gratifying but the charter fleet, Deep.Sea Charters in particular has it goin' on!
Start your "do it yourself" Westport trip with chart study. Get a paper chart or, using an on-line chart viewer, locate rock piles and reefs that offer rockfish the type of lie-in-wait structure that they covet and start building a list of waypoints!
Also, Call Larry Giese of Deep Sea Charters. He is a great guy and will have lots of tips to offer!
Good luck and post a report when you get back!!!