Question: Last year before the end of rockfish season, I went on a charter boat out of Berkeley. Some of the lingcod caught were females with eggs. When do lingcod spawn and can keeping these females hurt the fishery in the future? Should we as anglers release females like we do for striped bass? I'm glad to see the size limit dropped and the season's longer, but I don't want to be back to where we were before.

Answer: Lingcod and other groundfish are federally managed. Harvest management plans and stock assessments take into account the removal of both males and females when setting quotas, so fishery managers do factor in the take of females, too.

According to Department of Fish and Game (DFG) Environmental Biologist Travis Tanaka, the lingcod stock has fully recovered from their overfished status and so the spawning closure is no longer required to protect the stocks. Lingcod don't get "the bends" like rockfish do (no swim bladder), so females can be released successfully if handled properly.

In northern California, the seasons are closed for lingcod and other groundfish species in late fall, winter and spring for boat-based anglers. The closures help to protect mature female lingcod that have moved closer to shore to spawn, and protect the mature males that guard the egg nests.

Lingcod are a species that if handled properly can often be successfully caught and released. However, unless regulations prohibit keeping the fish (e.g. bag and minimum size limits) or the angler is releasing all fish, if it turns out the fish has been improperly handled or is bleeding and may not survive, the fish should be kept. Releasing bleeding females that may not survive in order to keep males instead is not a good conservation method.

Lingcod generally spawn from November through February. Females do take longer to mature and they grow to a larger size than males. By some estimates, males only grow to 24-26 inches. Females are legal to keep, so keeping an egg-laden female would be up to that fisherman's personal ethics. In addition, the practice of divers choosing to shoot male lingcod while they are guarding the egg beds is not prohibited, but it is a reflection of that fisherman's ethics.

Bottom line ... female lingcod are legal to take and so its up to the fisherman to decide whether or not they want to.