Bass lures for lingcod?

I inherited about 100 bass lures from my dad but I live on the coast and don't have much occasion to fish for bass.

So what to do with all of these lures? How about throwing them at some lingcod??? Most of them are topwater plugs that float, so I'd have to weight them down for approximately neutral buoyancy (I guess?) and send them down with a trap rig (with a separate weight to get/stay down on the bottom). Maybe they're too small for the ling.

Thoughts?

I don’t think there’s much a lingcod won’t bite on. But you’re just going to struggle getting them down there and you’re probably gonna lose all of the action with the extra weight. Plus with two or three treble hooks they are going to be snag machines in a reef. I’d probably just save them for striped bass, they love top water lures.

If you hook a jacksmelt on the back of any of them I bet they would work great. 

If I was going to fish them, I would probably troll them bounce-ball style. Since they are neutral buoyancy it would be hard to jig them without having them tangled with your main line. Maybe you could jig  them if you attach them to a spreader rig. Seems like more work than just using a swim bait, metal jig, or bait.

Cool old lures!

There might be some value for some of the old ones.

https://www.mybaitshop.com/pages/20-vintage-heddon-fishing-lures-worth-a-fortune

There might be some value for some of the old ones.

https://www.mybaitshop.com/pages/20-vintage-heddon-fishing-lures-worth-a-fortune

Ha, yeah, I looked at that exact page this morning. There's some in this box (like the vintage Heddon) that might be worth $30 -- and I'm not going to throw them to the ling or risk a snag -- but there are plenty that really aren't worth even as much as new cheap swimbait.

Troll them on a three-way if the hooks look strong enough to survive a good sized ling or halibut.   I used to buy cheap walleye diving lures and change out the hooks, replacing the lead trebles with some electrical solder so as not to snag everything on the kayak including me and still retain most of the action.   The more they rattled, the better for lings.

those are top water bass baits.    if a ling hit one it would be SICK!!

I’ve had my assortment of bass lures and a couple years ago I decided to experiment. Using 2-12” steel leaders attached to a 3-4 oz torpedo weight, I’d attach a frog or similar.  Then using 3-4” strips of squid, these things were killin the rockfish!  Never caught a Ling on them but fishing in 100 ft or so got nice quality rockfish! I put a Hoochie on and the rockfish loved that one too!

But I’ve had my biggest Lingcod (37.5”) with a 12-14” black  pinned thru the nose with a 6oz jig.They’ll either hitchhike with it or swallow it whole and get an upperlip hookset, like that PB did!
Alot of ways to catch these fish that we passionately pursue!!!

Scotty

And then there’s this thing!!!!

Neat. 

And then there’s this thing!!!!

That is cool!

Kinda reminds me of this guy's channel, where he makes some bizarre lures (plenty of normal ones too, but the bizarre are more interesting), and then fishes  with them (in the midwest):

https://www.youtube.com/@marlingbaits

I love the giant googly eye on the Mustang grille emblem!

I'm more of a chevy guy.  hahahha..