Big Ling, Sketchy Conditions, Used The Entire Fish
Written by Eric Keener
Feb. 6, 2020
This dive was anything but calm with 6-8' swells, heavy wind and a lot of surge. I really enjoy inviting newer spearos out and teaching them how to dive safely and effectively… that’s a big part of what Fin + Forage is all about; however, I had reservations about it this day. I promised a newer diver to take him out and teach him a few things about fish behavior and dive/hunting techniques. He said he wanted to help me film a few instructional spearo videos like how to rig your dive kayak and set up a dive board. Thankfully he had already taken a freedive course with MBAY Freediving, so I decided we could go out to the only reasonable spot to dive which was a large, very protected cove in Monterey County. I'm personally not a fan of diving on the inside of this cove due to me rarely finding anything worth shooting and it gets a lot of fishing pressure from kayakers. The swells leading up to Saturday were significantly larger and to my surprise, they even grew while we were in the water.
My good dive buddy Dan met us there with a new toy, too! A neat take on a Hawaiian sling which was super fun to play with! There were big rollers and actual waves inside of the cove - which is something that rarely happens at this spot. We decide to still make the long surface swim out past the rocks and do some hunting around there in 30-40’ water. There I am hole hunting, dropping my gun with float line near a hole with a fish in it in the <10' visibility, so my buddy could go down the line and get the fish. I film him as he shoots a kelpie, then I pull up my gun and go to hole hunt for myself. 1/2 my body is stuffed deep in a tight cave, one of those caves that has a few different places to look, I started in the potential hole on the left and nothing was there. Look to the one in the middle, nothing is there, and as I look to the right, I see a huge face looking at me just inches away. I knew this ling had size to it. I was way too close to aim my gun, so I wiggle back thinking, man, as soon as I move, it's going to run away. When it saw me wiggle back it tried to swim backward too but it was clearly in a hole without a back exit. So upon seeing this, I take aim and put her to sleep.
Now, I want to pause here for a moment. It’s important to know that the large female lings are the best breeders and are filled with hundreds of thousands of eggs. Shooting a big ling during the Nov-March time frame will very often be a female full of eggs. For this reason, Fin + Forage has taken a general stance on avoiding shooting these fish during the early part of their breeding season. One caveat, my good buddy Matt posted a recipe for making your own caviar and I really wanted to try it. So I pre-planned that if I found a pregnant female, I would do the best I could to respect taking her, by making sure to use every single edible part of her. A group of us divers at the time had been reading Josh Niland’s “The Whole Fish Cook Book” and I was dying to try some new ideas that had been brewing.
She ended up being 33" and just under 20 pounds. While the belly looks stupid full, it's because there ended up being two decent sized perch in her belly. Really wild to see a ling that large inside the cove! I was so stoked because I get my chance to throw down on a super challenging meal. I ended up using the entire, literally every part of the edible fish, to make a super fun dish.
THE WHOLE FISH: Strong broth (very reduced fish stock w seaweed); baked garlic potatoes and belly meat topped with lemon and yuzu caviar; fried bread with radish and black garlic cured liver, squid ink veggie purée made with the fish stock veggies. I wasn’t a fan of how the liver turned out by itself, but with the radish and bread it worked really well. What a fun challenge to figure out how to make a meal using the entire fish! It’s fulfilling (pun intended) to know nothing was wasted and the fish was totally respected!
