The timing is fantastic for the lingcod opener and the SportfishingReport.com charter Sunday on J.J. Gerritsen's Apollo is filling fast. Opening day is Friday, April 1 and Capt. Frank Ursitti said both of his boats, the Ranger 85 and the Coral Sea, are leaving tomorrow (Thursday) night out of CISCO's on two-day trips that are completely sold out.

"It actually looks awesome for this weekend," said Ursitti. "The weather should be good, the forecast is for 10 knots of breeze or less all weekend long."

SFR asked Ursitti, whose Ranger 85 won the SFR 2010 Award for #1 Lingcod catch, for advice on upping your odds of hooking into a fat ling come opening day.

"I know what we're going to do, we're going to try and make some mackerel right off the bat," he said. "Lots of folks like the jigs and artificials for lingcod, but I'm old school and I'll take mackerel any day.

"Then we're going to figure out whether the fish are up in the shallows or in the deeper water," Ursitti added. "We've been on whale watching trips lately, but when we fished the rockfish the first part of March there were really a bunch of lings in the shallows. We're going to fish San Nic and Miguel."

He noted that the minimum size for a lingcod is still 24 inches long and the daily limit is 2 fish per person.

Proposed rockfish regulations for 2011-2012 are still on hold at the Federal level. Those regs would reduce the minimum size to 22 inches, but for now it's 24.

Lingcod recovery is a major success story for West Coast fisheries. It was only March of 2004 that DFG raised the lingcod size minimum to 30 inches and reduced the limit to one fish. A combination of ideal ocean conditions and reduced pressure resulted in bumper crops of lingcod. Now it's your turn to take advantage of the bounty.

Popular charter master Homan Khaki will be hosting the SFR Apollo trip, which leaves out of Santa Barbara's SEA Landing Saturday night, and he'll be posting results and photos up on the SFR site as soon as he gets back. You can book your spot on the charter online. Just CLICK HERE.

Go get 'em.