Annie Nagel is a relatively  new kayak angler in Northern California. Her forums handle is  "Annie Are You OK." which devolves from some Michael Jackson song, they tell me. Season is winding down here in NorCal but along with winter comes spawning ling cod. Annie shares this story of her "Personal Best" lingcod caught on a recent Sonoma Coast weekend.  Famous around the world for it's wine grapes, Sonoma County also boasts some of the best fishing along its cliffs and rocky shorelines. Annie is also the newest member of the Ocean Kayaks Kayak Fishing Team, and we're confident she will do her sponsor proud in the coming years. We might have to start calling her "Annie you ARE OK!"

My boyfriend, Nick Chatelain, and I went out to Ocean Cove on Friday 10/23 and camped with a couple of friends. I couldn’t wait to finally fish the ocean after weekends and weekends of rough seas. I am pretty competitive with Nick, and I have been chasing lingzilla all season trying to catch up to his best three he got this year, weighing in at 17, 18, and 20 pounds. When we woke up in the morning, I noticed how quiet it was, and it put a smile on my face knowing there was little swell and no wind. We walked out to look at the ocean, and the conditions were ideal. We met up our friends Chad, Steve, Ben, Adam, Dustin, Kiel, Justin, and Junior.

I borrowed a friend’s Ocean Kayak Trident 13 and really enjoyed paddling out on it. I couldn’t wait to get my line in the water. We started fishing deep and I caught my first ling of the day in about 100 feet of water. That little guy fought so hard. It was a nice 27" ling and was my favorite shade of blue so I kept him. I caught a couple more lings in the meantime and released them. We paddled to a different spot and fished shallower.

When Adam told me we were at the spot, I dropped down and instantly got hit. I reel up a little bit and ‘zzzzzz’ my line starts peeling like crazy!!! I reel and reel and it was just a constant battle. I definitely knew this was bigger than any ling I had caught before! I did not want to lose it, but I was expecting to. My medium action spinning rod was so bent- it was awesome! I was getting so tired of reeling this big feller up and my arms were feeling the burn   I finally got it up where I could see and it was freakin’ massive. I tried to keep calm, but on the inside I was going crazy.

I grabbed my net and luckily for me it went as smoothly as it possibly could have gone. Once in the net and still completely under water the ling tried to take one last run and realized she wasn't going anywhere. I got her into my lap, and then I made sure she wasn't going anywhere. I was still worried that she would find a way out of my net and back into the ocean. I finally got my ling secured on my game clip and I was so proud and beyond stoked! Adam was right there to capture the huge smile on my face! I must say my PB ling was well worth the wait.

I caught some more lings and rockfish as the day went on, but just ended up keeping the two from the morning. When we got in, the guys bbq’d up some dogs and my favorite teriyaki pork skewers. I pranced around the parking lot with my fish showing it off to everyone and took lots of pictures. I was so proud of my catch! I had hella fun fishing the Sonoma coast with some of my favorite fishing buddies! It was a great weekend filled with good times, lots of laughs, and a much-needed dose of adrenaline!