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Sometimes, catching a trophy fish is the result of years of experience and meticulous preparation. And sometimes you get lucky. Jeff McCoy, who recently set the Delaware state record for king mackerel, is the first to admit his catch falls in the lucky category. “I’ve never caught a king mackerel before,” he laughs.

King mackerel are an unusual catch in Delaware. The state’s fisheries department website lists king mackerel as “uncommon.” The previous state record of 48 pounds, 9 ounces was set in 1992 by Gordon Harris. A king mackerel over 10 pounds qualifies as a Delaware trophy. When Jeff McCoy set out shark fishing with his family, he never could have predicted how the day would end.

Accidental King Mackerel

McCoy calls himself a weekend warrior. “I’ve only been fishing in the ocean for a couple years,” he says. His in-laws and wife wanted to catch a big fish, so McCoy decided to try shark fishing. “It was only the third or fourth time we’ve tried to catch a shark,” he admits.

King mackerel fishing usually involves slow trolling live baits with light wire and small treble hooks. These sharp eyed fish are wary of heavy tackle and picky about their meals. Professional king mackerel anglers go to great lengths to fool these fish.

McCoy had none of that. Targeting sharks, he anchored his 25-foot center console Reel McCoy along a series of shallow shoals within a couple miles of the beach. The crew set out three PENN 50-pound class combos spooled with 80 pound test monofilament, a 4-foot, 100-pound wire leader and large, offset circle hooks.

McCoy was not able to catch live bait, so he was using frozen Boston mackerel he purchased at Hook ‘em and Cook ‘em Bait and Tackle. McCoy added a bucket of chum to the spread and set out three baits under balloon floats. “The boat was sitting at a strange angle to the chum slick, so I ran one line through an outrigger clip and dropped the bait way back.”

The crew settled in to wait for a bite. “The fish hit the bait and took off screaming,” McCoy recalls. Unfortunately, the reel was in free spool so the line exploded into a hopeless backlash. “I couldn’t clear the tangle so I tightened the drag and started lopping the line on top of the birdsnest.”

The battle raged for 15 minutes. “Even with the drag pinned, the fish was pulling line,” McCoy says. When the fish made its first pass, McCoy thought it was a wahoo. “I would have never imagined a king mackerel.”

When McCoy worked the king mackerel close to the boat, the fish shot to the bow and tangled the fishing line around the anchor rope. McCoy’s brother-in-law jumped to the rescue. Instead of cutting the fishing line, he cut the anchor rope, cleared the tangle and reconnected the anchor rope. “He saved the anchor,” McCoy points out.

Despite the smoker king’s best tricks, the crew landed the huge kingfish. “I never thought about the state record,” McCoy says.

Race to the Dock

McCoy didn’t have ice onboard, so they pulled the anchor and raced 18 miles back to Indian River Inlet.

When Reel McCoy pulled into Indian River Marina, the docks were quiet. McCoy figures, “Everyone was at lunch or out fishing.” The crew wheeled the huge king mackerel to the fish cleaning station. “I pulled it out of the cooler and the fish cleaners were shocked.”

Out of curiosity, McCoy decided to weigh the fish. “They told me I crushed the state record.”

In short order, representatives of Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) were on the scene weighing the fish and helping McCoy fill out forms. Meanwhile, a crowd gathered to gawk at the catch.

“A week later they approved the record,” McCoy says. The 52-pound, 11.2-ounce king mackerel is already listed as the state record on DNREC website and the story has hit social media and national news. McCoy laughs, “My phone has been ringing.”

Grey’s Taxidermy is working on a replica of the catch. The state record holder says, “I’m going to look at it every chance I get.”

As for king mackerel fishing, McCoy is confident in his system. “We’re not going to change a thing.”

The post Big King Breaks Delaware Record appeared first on Salt Water Sportsman.

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We’ve all seen it.

A guy pulling dead cigar minnows or drifting a couple of rigged mullet on single-nose hooks crosses paths with a giant kingfish. It happens, but does it happen dependably?

Though these somewhat accidental hookups occur from time to time, you have to bring your A-game if you really want to score. Serious kingfish competitors know that consistency is not found, it’s built through mindful preparation and prudent game planning. And integral to this strategy is the right gear in the right place.

“You have to use the best gear you can. Because if you have a tournament-winning kingfish on and a reel fails, you might as well not be out there,” says kingfish pro Ron Mitchell of Jupiter, Florida.

A decorated tournament pro and Southern Kingfish Association Hall of Famer, Mitchell knows that fooling giant “smoker” kings means overcoming a legendary wariness born of experience, enhanced by keen eyesight, and complicated by a slashing style that makes them really good at taking what they want.

A soup-to-nuts treatise would keep us here all day, so let’s outline the key elements and why you need them.

Keep Them Kickin’

Live bait is the fuel that runs the serious kingfish engine. Whether it’s mullet, menhaden (pogies or bunker), scaled sardines (whitebait or pilchards), threadfin herring (greenbacks), round scad (cigar minnows), bigeye scad (goggle-eyes), redtail scad (speedos) or blue runners (hardtails), the livelier the better.

Capt. Kevin Farner, who runs out of St. Petersburg, Florida, throws a cast net for mullet or menhaden. But the more delicate baits can be susceptible to bruising from the mesh and are best collected on sabiki rigs. Larger blue runners or bluefish will bite off or break most sabikis, so Farner suggests using Gotcha plugs, spoons or jigs to catch them, a common tactic around northern Gulf drilling rigs.

While cast nets will weaken baitfish, so will the human hand. Maximize bait life by using a hook-out tool for a no-touch transfer from bait rig to livewell. Avoid dropping these delicate baits into the well; instead lower them gently.

Same-day bait use is ideal, but many anglers will pre-catch their ammo and hold them in mesh bait pens to maximize their fishing time. Kept in areas with clean water flow and fed bits of shrimp and glass minnows, captured baitfish remain healthy and ready for action.

On the boat, Mitchell stresses the importance of high-capacity oxygen pumps and uses multiple wells to spread out his bait. Also, rounded interiors keep the baits moving naturally without bumping their noses in corners. And make sure to prevent overcrowding. It is better to head out with fewer healthy baits than a well full of half-dead specimens. 

Appetizers

Kings respond aggressively to the sights and scents of feeding opportunities, so frozen chum blocks play a big role. Packed in a mesh sack hung from a stern cleat, the latter melts in the waves to release oil and ground baitfish bits.

Farner uses a larger laundry bag because it allows him to load multiple commercially made chum blocks or use his own. Placing a plastic bag inside a 5-gallon bucket, he’ll chop a variety of baitfish into a smelly mash, freeze it, and load the block into his laundry bag.

Complementing the boat’s in-deck or raised cooler, kingfish anglers need a quality portable cooler sized to fit under the leaning post against the transom or forward of the console. Separate from the lunch and beverage cooler, this one holds chum blocks and frozen ribbonfish—a strategic accompaniment to the liveys.

Sting the King

Given this predator’s strategy of slashing through prey at top speed, kings often miss single-hook rigs and make short work of monofilament line. Wire leaders repel those sharp teeth, while stinger rigs—a single lead hook with a trailing treble linked by a wire segment—snare kings no matter where they bite.

Bait size, water clarity and sea conditions require an array of stinger rigs. 

Read Next: Tips for Catching Kingfish: The Right Boat

Live-Bait Alternative: Hardware for Kings

Live bait is the go-to for smoker kings. But small to midsize fish regularly fall for artificial lures. And there’s nothing saying you won’t connect with a monster when slinging hardware. Plus, artificials are a great way to cover water, allowing you to troll at faster speeds. Trolling plugs, spoons, skirted lures and topwaters are all proven kingfish lures.

• LB Huntington Drone: Towing this spoon behind a weighted planer is a tried-and-true king-getter.
• Yo-Zuri 3D Magnum Deep Diver: Big-billed divers allow you to target specific depths.
• Nomad Designs Madscad: You need a tough plug to tangle with powerful predators like kings.

The post Tackle and Techniques to Catch Trophy Kingfish appeared first on Salt Water Sportsman.

Who doesn’t like a good, strong run out of a fish? I’m talking about a long, screaming, drag-smoking run. As you watch line melt off the reel, you’re thinking, “Is this thing going to spool me?” Most everyone I know, myself included, can appreciate that display of power. Especially when it’s a fly reel that’s sounding like the timing chain in your car is going bad. Maybe I’m dating myself with the timing chain reference. Let’s change that to “sounds like a high-pitched squeal unnatural to the object making it.”

King mackerel will put a grin on any angler’s face. Estimates on what speed they achieve vary, with big kingfish over 30 pounds approaching the 50-mph mark. To put that into perspective, bonefish are estimated to top out in the mid 20-mph range.

King Mackerel Fly Fishing Tackle

My recommendations are a 10-weight setup for small or medium-sized kingfish, and a 12-weight for big king mackerel. Next up, reels. You are looking for reels with the 10-weight to hold about 250 yards of backing, and the 12-weight reel should hold a minimum of 350 yards. Most of the time, that will be enough line to handle most runs.

Find a full-length sinking line with a sink rate in excess of 5 inched per second. There aren’t many being offered presently, but Rio makes the T series of lines. The T-11 and T-13 work perfectly on 10- and 12-weight rods. Scientific Anglers Sonar series has a couple full length sinkers that will work also.
Leader length will be determined by water clarity, 9 foot being a minimum. Gin clear may demand 14-foot leaders.

King Mackerel Flies for Fly Fishing

Fly selection is varied to the extreme. Baitfish imitations are the standard, but Clouser minnows, Deceivers and all of the other popular streamers can take fish. Chartreuse over white is arguably the color most consistent getting a kingfish’s attention, but pink over white, all yellow, orange over yellow, all white, and olive over white work too.

How to Use a Sinking Line for King Mackerel

If you have not used sinking lines before, here are a couple tips. A short cast and then feeding the line out will get considerably deeper than making a long cast and just letting the line sink. There’s always wind and current moving the boat, and that movement will have the effect of lifting the line and preventing sinking. A line with no tension on it is what you want for getting really deep.

The fastest way of “dumping” the line is to hold the line very loosely in your line hand and make horizontal sweeps back and forth with the rod tip just a few inches off the water. The drag on the line by the water, combined with the rod movement, will pull all the slack line off the deck and out the rod tip. There is a certain amount of rod stroke, about a 100-degree stroke, and the lines flies out. And the faster you can get all the line in the water will allow the top section of the line, where the fly is, to sink the longest amount of time drag-free. This is how to get ultra-deep. Combined with weighted flies, I regularly bounce flies on the bottom in 80 to 100 feet of water.

Sometimes kingfish like a fly retrieved at breakneck speed, but it is rare. A varied, erratic stripping is more likely to get strikes in my experience. Stripping fast 2 to 4 times, and then having a long (2 full seconds) pause is typical. Sometimes, 1 long fast strip, followed by a full 5-second pause is the ticket to getting hooked up. One any given day, the kings can have a particular strip that will cause them to jump on your fly and it may take some experimentation to find what they want.

Fly Fishing for Kingfish

If you talk to anyone who fishes for kings to any great degree, they will be the first to tell you that kingfish are famous for being temperamental. They definitely have a switch and they can start and stop feeding in very short order. Just because you’re not getting hits doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. I usually give it an hour, several fly changes, and try stripping variations. If strikes are still not coming, move on to other species. But if they are on, hang on to your rod. Kingfish can hit your fly moving fast, stopped dead, and on the free fall while you are letting the line sink.

If you have a strike and the fish misses the fly, do not stop moving the fly. If anything, speed up the retrieve. Most mackerel feed by hitting their prey at speed, decapitating the prey, and then swing back around to pick up the pieces. By continued stripping, the kingfish believes its prey is getting away and will typically come back for another strike.

Hooking King Mackerel on Fly Tackle

Setting the hook on the strike can be quite challenging for a couple reasons. King mackerel have a wide range of striking practices. They can hit going away at 30 miles an hour and then speed up when they feel the hook. You are actually trying to set the hook while letting the fish take line out.

Or, a kingfish can pick up the fly with incredible subtlety, and then swim directly at you, leaving you to strip line like mad in an effort to come tight and set the hook. A strip strike will not serve you well in either of these scenarios. I like a combination of strip strike and rod set (rod struck hard and low to the side) to allow for either a strike going away or coming toward.

You’ll just need to get some experience under your belt for consistent solid hookups with kingfish. The strike from a king mackerel often happens in the blink of an eye, and then the line is flying off the deck at amazing speed. Everything happens so fast, that to prioritize a good hook-set, I highly recommend what I refer to as secondary hook-setting. After the line is cleared and line is coming off the reel, point the rod straight in the direction of the fish, do not touch the reel or line, and add 4 to 6 additional short jabs with the rod. Even though line is coming off the reel, the jabbing motion adds pulsing force to the hook point and finishes setting the hook.

The other method for fly fishing kings is live chumming. This can generate some of the most intense action you may ever see, with kings launching out of the water to dizzying heights. It is pretty much the same as any other live chumming with a couple of exceptions. First, live chumming kingfish has the best results with large chum baits. Use pilchards or menhaden, at least 4 inches long. Smaller baits will usually just get the smaller blue runners and false albacore active. When live chumming, I like to match the fly to the bait. A chartreuse-over-white fly the same general size as the chum baits performs significantly better than anything else.

The post How To Catch King Mackerel on Fly Tackle appeared first on Salt Water Sportsman.

We left Freeport, Texas, in the late afternoon and headed offshore to a deepwater drilling ship to look for tuna. We arrived after dark, but the rig lights had the surrounding water lit up like the sky on the Fourth of July. Blackfins were busting at the surface, attacking whatever forage was drawn near the structure by the bright lighting and, every once in a while, a big yellowfin tore a hole in the water in unmistakable fashion.

Armed with 8-inch Yo-Zuri Sashimi Bull Metallic poppers on spinning gear, we made slow drifts around the ship, picking off a dozen blackfins in the 10- to 15-pound class, and adding a 75-pound yellowfin as a kicker. After daybreak, when the action subsided, we switched to trolling lures. Offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, you can expect to encounter anything from wahoo to blue marlin. While you catch billfish and both blackfin and yellowfin tuna primarily around structure 50 to 75 miles out, the majority of offshore anglers in Texas spend their time fishing closer to shore, where they can double down on multiple species, from red snapper and grouper to wahoo, king mackerel, ling (cobia) and dorado. The last three are frequently caught just 25 to 35 miles out, around floating debris, grass lines, oil platforms, man-made reefs or anchored shrimp boats.

Some of best water for kings lies offshore of the Port O’Connor jetties, on the middle Texas coast. When the weather, wind and water are right, kings can be caught from the jetties to about 25 miles out. Last summer, it wasn’t unusual to run to the Catwalk rigs, about 8 miles out, and catch over 20 kings in a few hours.

The key to catching king mackerel off the Texas coast is finding dark-green water that is clear and has a little current. If you can’t find it near the oil rigs, search for fish by putting out two lines and drifting until you get bit.

If you’re dead-set on catching big kings, definitely go with live baits. Menhaden, herring and pinfish work, but friskier blue runners (hardtails) are the top choice, and it doesn’t take long to get a day’s supply using sabiki rigs around most oil and gas platforms. The best way to fish them is to either bump-troll or free-line. 

Keep in mind that sharp-toothed kingfish often kill or mame live baits during high-speed attacks, then circle back to grab the remains. Give fish the chance to return for the spoils before you reel in a bait following a missed strike. 

Rigged baits also work on king mackerel, especially ribbonfish and Spanish sardines. Using a Dave Workman Jr. Ribbonfish King Rig, named after the three-time Southern Kingfish Association Angler of the Year who came up with it, is perhaps the most productive way to fish ribbonfish. The rig features single-strand wire, a 3/0 hook through the snout of the bait, and No. 4 trebles pinned along its body.

Of course, king mackerel also fall for artificials such as the popular MirrOlure Big Game series of swimming and diving plugs, which can be trolled at 2 to 9 knots, 12 to 25 feet deep to better cover the water column. Blue-white-silver, pink-chartreuse-silver, and pink-and-silver are particularly effective colors. Drone spoons and similar flashy trolling spoons also do the trick and are less likely to foul when there’s floating grass in the water. However, a downrigger or trolling weight is required to keep the spoon working at the desired depth, some 10 to 20 feet below the surface. 

When it comes to baits for ling, time-proven favorites are live shrimp, pinfish, croakers and hardtails, but the curious fish will hit just about anything they see. That includes topwaters, spoons, jigs and soft-plastics. Because ling frequently travel in pods, competition with group mates often forces the fish to eat a bait or lure without a prior close inspection, a rash decision that bodes well for anglers. 

For dorado, both trolling and running-and-gunning pay off. Many anglers combine both tactics, looking for flotsam at cruising speed, then throttling down to troll along any fishy-looking weed line or other debris they come across. Voracious and frequently aggressive, dorado rarely turn down any live bait. However, rigged ballyhoo and a wide range of skirted trolling lures and daisy chains also do a number on the colorful fish. Chuggers and poppers claim their share as well, and working one of these loudly often brings big fish that were hanging 20, 30 or 50 feet down to the surface
to investigate.

Having a pitch bait rigged on a spinning outfit, ready to cast at any big bull or cow that comes within range, is another smart way to hook larger specimens, which tend to travel in pairs or trios (one bull and two cows), and typically refuse to leave an area without their mates, affording anglers excellent chances for double or triple hookups. 

As for blackfin tuna, locating some sort of forage—be it flying fish, an aggregation of baitfish around an oil rig, or the discards from an anchored shrimp boat culling its catch—is essential. Numerous artificials, from cedar plugs to trolling feathers, skirted trolling lures, and swimming and diving plugs, prove effective and enable anglers to cover a lot of water. But rigged natural baits and especially live ones are hard to beat. 

While similar to those intended for dolphin, trolling baits for blackfin tuna produce best when fished farther behind the boat’s transom. And the Stealth Rig, which consists of a trolling feather, usually purple-and-black or red-and-black, rigged on a 30-foot leader of 40-pound fluorocarbon with a wind-on swivel on the opposite end, oftentimes takes keen-eyed blackfins when it seems that absolutely nothing else will. 

SWS Planner

What: Kingfish, cobia, dorado and blackfin tuna

When: May through October

Who:

The following charter operations can put you on fish and shorten the learning curve:

Port O’Connor, Texas
Capt. Rusty Tronicek, Rusty’s Charters, 361-798-6319

Capt. Michael Littlejohn, Port O’Connor Offshore Adventures, 903-441-3937

Port Aransas, Texas

Capt. Michael Matthews, Dolphin Dock Charters, 361-749-4188

Port Mansfield, Texas

Capt. Chad Kinney, Bamm Bamm Fishing Charters. 956-802-2269

SWS Tackle Box

Rods: 6 ¹⁄₂– to 7-foot, 30- to 50-pound class

Reels: 20- to 50-class conventional; 6000- to 10000-class spinning; Abu Garcia Ambassadeur 7000 or equivalent baitcasting

Line: 30- to 80-pound

Baits: Live blue runners, pinfish, croakers and shrimp for a variety of species; rigged ribbonfish for kings

Lures: MirrOlure Big Game series or similar swimming and diving plugs, Yo-Zuri Sashimi Bull Metallic poppers or similar offshore topwaters, skirted trolling lures, Drone spoons or similar trolling spoons, and bucktail jigs

The post Offshore Fishing in the Gulf of Mexico appeared first on Salt Water Sportsman.

Although their methods vary, the most successful kingfish tournament pros emphasize the importance of fishing the most desirable baits in specific locations in a particular way. No detail is left to chance when it comes to catching big king mackerel.

That starts with giving kingfish something they want to eat. “What works one time of the year doesn’t always work another time,” says Capt. Ozzie Fischer of Fort Myers, Florida, who has caught two 62-pounders in Gulf of Mexico kingfish tournaments. “You can’t just have one favorite bait because kings change their feeding habits throughout the year.”

For example, he says a threadfin herring is the best kingfish bait in early spring, and a blue runner is always good. But there are times when a silver mullet will out-fish a blue runner. At other times, a ladyfish is best.

Bigger Is Better

Fischer’s go-to is a live bluefish, which he says is “the best all-around big kingfish bait there is. If I had to pick one bait to catch a giant king, it’d be a live bluefish, up to 5 or 6 pounds.”

Capt. Casey Hunt in Key West, Florida, who won numerous kingfish tourneys along Florida’s Atlantic coast before heading to the Keys, learned early on about the importance of giving kings what they want.

“For years, I ran the beach from Pompano Beach to Fort Pierce,” Hunt says. “I had speedos, I had tinker mackerel, and I had goggle-eyes. All good baits, yet I was catching smaller fish. The big kings didn’t want them. But as soon as I would catch a blue runner and put it out, we’d immediately hook a bigger kingfish because that’s what they were eating.

“Use the biggest runners you can get—3, 4, 5 pounds,” adds Hunt, who last year caught a 71-pound king off Key West on a blue runner.

For Capt. Chad Kinney in Port Mansfield, Texas, it’s hard to beat a ribbonfish for targeting big kings.

Capt. Mark Henderson out of Cape Carteret, North Carolina, who won last year’s Cape Lookout Shootout Championship thanks to a 63-pounder, puts a ribbonfish on one downrigger and a live menhaden or another bait on the other. Dead cigar minnows “are a quick and easy way to have a successful day of king mackerel fishing,” he says.

Find Fish

Anything that attracts bait also attracts kingfish. Many Gulf anglers fish oil rigs, but that can be a boat run of 8 to 50 miles.

“It depends where you’re at on the Texas coast, but what I’m looking for is structure because kings hang around structure, and I’m definitely looking for signs of bait, especially baitballs,” says Kinney, who adds that the closest rig out of Port Mansfield is 21 miles offshore. “We can run out 8 miles, and I’m in 60 to 70 feet. We have a lot of good natural structure and reefs.”

Fishing out of Key West, Hunt checks different sections of the reef that hold bait to see what’s there.

“Sometimes the current hits the reef differently and there’s bait balled up there,” says Hunt, who uses his Simrad bottom machine to find bait, and CMOR mapping to find wrecks and other structure. “Sometimes the water will get really cold, and when you find where it bumps up a little bit, even if the increase is half a degree, it can mean fish are there.”

Less Is More

More lines don’t necessarily mean more kingfish, Henderson says: “Fish what your experience allows, even if it’s just two lines on opposite sides of the boat. It’s a whole lot better to fish two good ones than four that are constantly fouled up.”

Kinney has caught tournament kings up to 58 pounds while pulling only a couple of baits.

“Something I’ve done for years, even though people think I’m nuts, is trolling just two lines for kingfish. Instead of putting five out, troll two because you make tighter turns and have one staggered farther than the other one,” says Kinney, who’ll often troll a MirrOlure diving plug in addition to a ribbonfish. “If you have three or four lines out and you have a triple hookup, you’re going to lose something. You might lose your winning tournament fish.”

Fischer usually fishes a short line, a medium and a long. If conditions allow, he’ll also fly a kite and put out a downrigger line.

“If I have big bluefish, I’ll probably put one on my longest line, and then I’ll put a couple of blue runners out or a goggle-eye. I may change those, but I’ll leave one big bluefish out.”

Henderson fishes two downrigger lines from the transom, a shotgun bait, a medium bait, and one close from the T-top holders, plus a bait in the prop wash.

Read Next: Live Baiting and Rigging for Kingfish

“If we’re fishing live bait, we go as slow as we possibly can,” he says. “Sometimes you bump-troll, sometimes you drift a little bit. You don’t want to drag the baits through the water; you want them to swim as naturally as possible.”

Hunt takes the opposite approach, trolling live bait as quickly as possible on three lines at 30, 60 and 100 feet behind the boat.

“I believe big kingfish are reaction feeders. And this is part of the reason that I fish a little bit differently than a lot of other people,” Hunt says. “I run-and-gun from spot to spot to spot, and pull my baits fast. By fast, I mean a lot of times I’ll leave both motors in gear and won’t pull them out.

“Yes, you kill a lot of bait, which means you have to change your baits often to constantly keep fresh, lively ones in the water. But by pulling these baits fast, it doesn’t give that big kingfish time enough to really examine the bait.” And that increases your chances of catching a kingfish worth bragging about.

SWS Tackle Box

Fall Kingfish

Long runs and soft mouths demand plenty of line and a smooth drag to avoid pulling the hooks on big kings. Pros prefer mono for its forgiving stretch. Wire leaders (the darker, the better) help prevent cutoffs.

• Reels: Accurate Valiant BVL 600S 20-pound conventional lever-drag reel or equivalent
• Line: 20- to 40-pound mono
• Leader: 45-pound Knot 2 Kinky nickel-titanium or similar dark-colored wire
• Bait: Catch the bait kings feed on with sabiki rigs, or use a jig for blue runners, small bonito or Spanish mackerel

SWS Planner

Off the beaches and jetties or over nearshore structure, when the kingfish are running, they will likely be available from every port on the Gulf, mid-Atlantic and Florida coasts.

• What: King mackerel
• Where: Texas, Florida and North Carolina
• When: August through October

Port Mansfield, Texas

Capt. Chad Kinney

956-802-2269, bammbammfishing.com

Key West, Florida

Capt. Casey Hunt

305-849-4242, cnitadventures.com

Captiva Island, Florida

Capt. Ozzie Fischer

239-777-7500, fischercharters.com

Cape Carteret, North Carolina

Capt. Mark Henderson

252-723-1113, liquidfiresportfishing.com

The post Pro Tips for Catching King Mackerel appeared first on Salt Water Sportsman.

Things were looking up from the start. I’d loaded the livewell with pork-chop menhaden on the first throw of the cast net, and shortly after I reached the wreck— 15 miles off Virginia Beach—and put out the first livey, a smoker pounded it and was off to the races before I could get a second bait in the water.

I remember hearing that first outrigger clip pop and the line zing off the reel. The rest is sort of a blur. But two hours later, after cranking in and releasing a dozen big kings, I was out of breath, drenched in sweat and nursing sore arms.

Local Knowledge

Off Virginia Beach, my home port, king mackerel fishing is more of a niche pursuit practiced by a cult of dedicated inshore anglers. Each summer, I spend hours searching for a king bite. Last season was different. From July through September, mid-Atlantic anglers experienced unprecedented action from Maryland to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Areas where king mackerel are an occasional catch became hotspots. Warm water, an abundance of bait and low rainfall may have contributed to the bite, but no one could have predicted the world-class smoker king fishing extending so far north.

To shorten the learning curve, I dropped in on Capt. Kevin Perry at Rudee Inlet Station Marina. After watching him score several big kings while fishing next to him, I had to convince him to share his secrets. “It seems the water has been getting warmer and clearer,” Perry noted. He also noticed more menhaden and other baitfish, including ribbonfish, another anomaly. “We’ve become ribbonfish specialists; we’ve been catching tons of them,” he laughed. And ribbonfish happen to be one of king mackerel’s favorite foods.

Perry explained that the kings showed up in late June and really fired up from August through September. “We’ve targeted them hard the last two years,” he added. Reports of similar action came in from as far north as Maryland.

Full Disclosure

Perry starts the day catching bait with a 7-foot cast net. On a good day, he finds all he needs in front of Rudee Inlet. Other times, he runs along the beach until he spots a school of menhaden.

Once he fills the livewell, he doesn’t go far. “We caught our biggest kings in 8 to 30 feet of water,” he says. In fact, he hooked several fish over 60 pounds close to shore. Nevertheless, Perry points out that he catches greater numbers on nearshore wrecks within 15 miles of Rudee Inlet.

Perry’s tactic is simple. He slow-trolls four live baits, two off the long-rigger lines and the other pair off the short riggers at 2 to 3 knots, “Just fast enough to keep them swimming straight.” He usually opts for live menhaden fished on a stinger rig consisting of single-strand No. 5 wire attached to a single 5/0 live-bait hook impaled in the bait’s nose, and a 4X No. 4 treble as a trailer, hooked in the back of the baitfish, right behind the dorsal fin.

When the kings are scattered, Perry resorts to artificials, trolling a spread of five at 6 knots—two Rapala CDMag 18s off the long riggers, two CDMag 25s from the short riggers, and a Drone 3 ½ spoon 75 feet behind a 24-ounce inline sinker. To prevent cutoffs, he attaches 12 inches of No. 5 wire ahead of each plug with a small swivel.

As a die-hard king mackerel angler, I’m always looking to take my skills to the next level. Each fall, I travel to Hatteras, North Carolina, for some of the best kingfishing in the world.

Starting in October and running into December, huge schools of big kings descend on the inshore waters off Hatteras Inlet. And after a mild winter and a warm spring, Perry’s hopes are high for this king season.

Master Class

Last November, I joined Capt. Rom Whitaker aboard Release for a day in smoker heaven. Like Perry, Whitaker has noticed an improvement in the king mackerel fishing. “But the fish are arriving later,” he admits.

We left Hatteras Inlet and found a school of menhaden. Using a 12-foot cast net with 1-inch mesh, mate Andy Trant quickly loaded the livewell. Whitaker ran about 12 miles, then slowed the boat along a color change, where he marked schools of croakers on the bottom. Trant immediately deployed four live baits from the riggers.

Whitaker says he likes to look for bait on a color change, with a temperature break from 68 to 72 degrees.

While they’ll often find kings on local wrecks, and the biggest kings on inshore reefs and rock piles, he claims the best fishing is over the bait marks.

Slowly pulling the live baits, we worked both sides of the color change. Whitaker was marking fish, but we weren’t getting bites. So Trant started changing rigs.

The team starts the day with a sevenstrand cable stinger rig: two 4X No. 4 trebles figure-eight-knotted to the cable, one positioned to hook through the nose of the bait and the other tied to the long tag end as a stinger. “It’s simple, fast and tough,” Whitaker explains.

If Whitaker doesn’t get bites on the cable, he goes stealthy.

Starting with a 2/0 single front hook and No. 6 4X trailer on No. 5 single-strand wire, he builds a 12-inch trace with a stinger. He connects that to 5 feet of 40-pound fluorocarbon with an Albright knot, and joins the fluoro to the main line with a small swivel.

“When I see a bait get nervous, I’ll crank the line tight to prevent the king from biting through the line,” Whitaker says.

The change made all the difference. Within minutes of dropping the fourth bait in the water, we had our first bite as a 30-pound king skyrocketed on the long rigger.

Once Whitaker had the kings’ ticket, the show was on. We hooked fish up to 40 pounds, and several times we had two or more on at once.

Unexpected Surprise

Big king mackerel follow their brutal, initial attack with a long run, and then settle into a tenuous fight. The key to success, especially with larger fish, is keeping the drag light. Whitaker recommends less than 5 pounds of pressure to avoid pulling the small hooks out of the mackerel’s hard mouth. He’s convinced that patience is a virtue when fighting a king.

Read Next: How to Catch Trophy Kingfish

After one particular hookup, the rod bent double under the strain from a heavy fish refusing to budge. At the conclusion of a prolonged give-and-take battle with light drag, the angler brought a 25-pound blackfin tuna to the boat. “I’ve caught wahoo, tuna, even blue marlin in the same area,” Whitaker says.

With king mackerel moving farther up the East Coast, more anglers have an opportunity to get in on world-class fishing close to shore. Whether slow-trolling live baits or high-speed trolling lures, get ready for aggressive bites, long runs and fast action with big, bad king mackerel.

The post How to Catch Mid-Atlantic Kingfish appeared first on Salt Water Sportsman.

Twenty-pound braid raced from the small Penn 4500 spinner. I held the rod high, loosened the drag and hoped the fish would stop.

Fortunately, it ceased running after emptying three-quarters of the spool. Now my fear was it would swim beyond the ledge and part the line on the coral. Remarkably, that didn’t materialize either. With the big king reasonably under control, our fear shifted to the sharks. And through it all, I was hoping the 30-pound titanium leader and small hook would hold.

We were anchored off ­Bimini, and the yellowtails had shut down due to a wolf pack of sharks moving in. However, some cero mackerel appeared, and I began drifting baits back for them. And that’s when I hooked the big king. Over the years, we’ve bested kings as large as 66 pounds aboard my MARC VI, with several in the 50-pound class, but I never saw this one coming, a 55-pounder under seriously challenging conditions.

Miraculously, in lieu of these obstacles, we landed the big king.

Nonconformists Kings exceeding 25 pounds are impressive predators and extremely challenging on 20-pound-class and lighter tackle. And should you score, they’re quite delicious when smoked and even parlayed into a dip. School kings are fun too, but I’ll take one big smoker over a bunch of snakes.

Unlike school kings, the smokers migrate to the beat of a different drummer. Dr. Bob Shipp, Professor ­Emeritus of Marine Sciences at the University of South ­Alabama, reports that the king mackerel migration in the northern Gulf used to parallel the cobia run, with schools of 10- to 20-pound-class kings arriving in March or April.

“That certainly has changed over the last 20 to 30 years,” says Shipp. “It was water temperature which drove the migrations of the larger kings, as it still does for the smaller ones. But now, for the big kings, it’s all about forage. They’re not as migratory in our region anymore. Instead, they hold at the rigs, wrecks, structures and artificial reefs where the forage is. Structures holding bait year-round will also hold big kings year-round.”

Off Alabama, a 1,200-square-mile permitted area holds abundant artificial reefs, cement pyramids and other environmentally compatible materials. And nearly every one of these reefs holds bait and big king mackerel. Find the structures holding masses of bait and there should be some big kings around them, says Shipp.

Florida Keys Chime In Key West Capt. Mark Schmidt echoes Shipp’s sentiments for Gulf-side kings.

“In the Gulf, big kings gather around structure as small as troughs and rock piles,” says Schmidt. “It’s all about the forage. Yellowtails are a huge part of their diet. Big kings will be on any troughs, wrecks, shoals, rock piles or ledges that hold ’tails on both the Gulf and Atlantic sides.”

Gulf fish show in numbers in late January or February, whereas the Atlantic stocks show up in November. “It depends on our cold fronts,” says Schmidt. “A couple of strong ones back-to-back, or lack thereof, and the fish may move in early or lag behind longer than normal.”

March is a solid month for big kings off Key West, though some are around every month of the year. A lot of the old-timers still catch big kings right out front of Key West. They refuse to burn gas and run any distances. But for those who aren’t afraid to travel, the largest concentrations of big kings still migrate well west of Key West, from the Marquesas to the Dry Tortugas. Credit that to vast amounts of bait, structure and lighter fishing pressure.

Kings of the Bahamas Some of the largest king mackerel thrive in Bahamian waters. It’s believed these big kings don’t migrate but are rather territorial along stretches of reefs where they find a constant supply of yellowtails, blue runners, jacks, tinker mackerel, chubs and cero mackerel as food ­sources. Compared to their longer and slimmer U.S. cousins, big ­Bahamian kings are often shorter and stockier.

Notable monster-king haunts include the Atlantic-side reefs near Bimini, down through the Riding Rocks, and up into Northwest Providence Channel from North Rock to the Gingerbreads. However, wherever thriving reefs exist, big kings reside, particularly in the far, less-pressured reaches of the Bahamas.

East Coast Take Palm Beach Capt. Greg ­Bogdan says his best kingfishing runs start late March and last through June. “They’re migrating with all the bait,” says Bogdan. “The steep drop from around 110 to 140 feet of water between Lost Tree Village and Juno is alive with bait. I’ve done dives along this drop; there are loads of speedos, bonito, runners and such — prime forage for big kings. I’ll fish along its outer edge and where there’s a current washing over it.

“Wrecks are excellent too, especially during the winter. Big kings hang on them for the bait. And within 3 miles of Palm Beach Inlet, there are 11 wrecks, all productive. They’re close to the inlet and that 110- to 140-foot drop, all bait-rich zones.”

Monster Sammies “It’s a cliché, but big baits catch big fish, and that certainly goes for big kings,” says Shipp. “Off Alabama, the rigs have plenty of 1½- and 2-pound hardtails (blue runners); they’re the best big-king baits up here.”

Schmidt also favors large blue runners and legal-size yellowtails for big kings. Off the Atlantic and Gulf sides of the Keys, and ­Florida’s southern and central west coasts, some of the largest kings fall to live Spanish and cero mackerel. Bogdan prefers live speedos and bullet bonito when gunning for the big ones.

Fishing techniques are regional. Yet an across-the-board knockout tactic on big kings is to slow-troll a pair of Spanish or cero mackerel around those schools, or bump-troll them out over patch reefs and bottom structure. Use downriggers in deeper waters.

A potent tactic in South Florida, the Florida Keys and the Bahamas is to first anchor and chum for yellowtails. After about an hour of ’tailing, free-line a Spanish or cero mackerel or a legal-size yellowtail well back in the slick on a balloon float. Place the rod in a holder and resume yellowtailing. Sooner or later, that live-bait rod will scream. Big kings are also suckers for baits splashing underneath a kite; keep this in mind when live-baiting at drift or anchor.

Tuned Strategy Light single-strand wire leaders and diminutive treble hooks are believed to draw more strikes because they’re less noticeable than stouter rigs. ­However, very light drag settings are required to keep these hooks from pulling or straightening. In short, a big king is forced to run until it exhausts itself — not a good scenario for releasing unwanted fish.

I continue to enjoy ­success with a dual circle-hook rig fabricated with 50-pound titanium or 60-pound single-strand wire and 4/0- to 6/0-size hooks. Embed the lead hook in front of the bait’s dorsal, with the trailing hook left dangling. With a large bait such as a mackerel, embed the stinger circle lightly in its mid or aft dorsal-fin area.

Read Next: How-To Catch Smoker Kings Like the Pros

Once floated into position on a balloon, the rod goes into a holder. When a big king hits, the rod bends and sets either the lead or trailing circle hook. If the rod straightens back up after the strike (a missed hook-set), immediately free-spool; providing the remaining bait portion floats back naturally, the king should circle back for it. When the line speeds up, engage the drag, wind to set the hook, and enjoy the fight.

Once a circle hook sets, it’s not coming out. Furthermore, the hooks are large enough to withstand pressure from a 20-pound outfit. Should we choose to release the fish, it won’t be hooked deeply with a circle hook, and it should have enough energy to swim away. The single circles are also much safer to the person releasing the fish.

The post How to Catch Trophy Kingfish appeared first on Salt Water Sportsman.

KINGS IN SPADES

An hour after losing sight of Hatteras Inlet in North Carolina, we were slow-trolling in 90 feet of water, about 15 miles from port, in an area where Rooks regularly puts charter customers on kings larger than 30 pounds (aka smokers). Soon, I and the rest of the anglers on board — Jamison and two other friends of the captain, Stuart Wade and John Elmore — got to experience first hand just how good the bite in the Outer Banks can be.

IRRESISTIBLE FATBACKS

Our choice of baits, live menhaden — know locally as “fatbacks” — proved ¬impossible for the fish to resist, and we all got in on the action that first morning. As is typical with kingfish, the strikes came in flurries. A few doubleheaders and several fish hooked in succession turned the fishing into a game of musical chairs requiring quick reactions and fancy footwork to prevent tangles and to keep fish from coming unbuttoned.

By noon, we’d put six or seven kings in the upper 20s in the fish box, along with several cookie-cutter 15-pounders. Nevertheless, the 30-pound-plus smokers I’d come to the Outer Banks for had eluded us. We hooked one fish that would probably have reached that mark, and I had the dubious distinction of being the one who lost it. After a pair of -prolonged sprints that emptied more than half the reel spool, I still couldn’t turn the fish. Then the hook pulled some 15 minutes into the battle.

SMOKERS LIKE IT COOL

Not content with the results, Rooks asked us to crank the lines in and made a move. “We usually find the big boys in the cooler water,” he explained. “Here it’s 75 degrees. Let’s see if we can find an area where the water is a couple of degrees cooler.” After a 20-minute run, our captain slowed the boat down and called for lines in. Although we’d traveled several miles back toward the coast, the water looked just as blue as it did at our first stop. There was, however, one major difference: “The water is 70 degrees,” Rooks announced from the bridge. “We’ll get some big ones here.”

FLEXIBLE SPREAD

The conviction in the captain’s tone wasn’t lost on the crew. Everyone on deck grabbed a rod and dropped a live bait behind the boat. In a couple of minutes, we were again pulling the full spread: two baits on flat lines 50 to 60 feet off the transom corners; two short baits off the outriggers; and a long bait set 75 to 100 yards back off the center rigger.

The number of lines and their positions seemed pretty standard, but Rooks kept changing the lengths, winding up and dropping back the baits 20 feet or so, every few minutes. Had we been using rigged dead ballyhoo or mullet, the placement of the ¬outrigger baits would also have been ¬common. But considering that we were fishing live menhaden, it was surprising. Rooks likes those two baits barely 20 feet behind the tips of the outriggers, so they are periodically yanked out of the water as the boat rocks from side to side. That way, he said, they create a lot of splash, which gets the attention of the fish.

SLASH ATTACK

It wasn’t long before Rooks’ theory was proven right. First, the long bait got whacked. A USO (Unidentified Swimming Object) grabbed a big fatback at full speed and kept on going. Elmore pulled the rod from the holder and took his time fighting what we all suspected was the first true smoker king of the trip.

Only seconds later, a silver torpedo came crashing out of the water off the port side with one of our baits clenched between its teeth. A loud expletive preceded by the word “holy” resonated from the deck of the Tuna Duck. We all yelled it in unison at the sight of the amazing aerial attack. Wade was on the rod the instant that fish came tight, while Koci, Jamison and I tended to the other lines, hoping for additional hookups.

Sure enough, another fish jumped on my bait. With the violent strike, there was no need to set the hook. I just raised the rod, waited for the first run to end, then went to work with the reel. Having learned my lesson, I maintained a lighter 8 pounds of drag this time, so the small treble hook stayed put.

With three kings on at the same time, pandemonium reigned in the cockpit. But one by one, each fish came boat-side, was gaffed and put in the icebox. The smallest was about 20 pounds; the others were both 30-plus. And the action only got hotter as the afternoon wore on. More skyrocketing fish, more hookups and several more large kings came to gaff. To add to the excitement, we also hooked a couple of sailfish.

WELCOME ABOARD

Gaffing a big kingfish in rough seas is not an easy task, and neither is bringing it on board safely. Sinking the gaff hook just behind the head of the fish is ideal. It allows you to subdue and maintain control of it as you pull it over the gunwale. Then take the kingfish straight to the fish box to minimize the potential for injury (don’t forget that mouth full of sharp teeth) or losing the fish after it shakes free of the gaff.

KINGFISH CENTRAL

From snakes to smokers, kingfish of all sizes are plentiful off North Carolina‘s coast in the fall and winter months. And boats out of Cape Hatteras and Port Oregon in the Outer Banks have easy access to some of the very best action, which often takes place just minutes away from the inlets.

SWS PLANNER

North Carolina Smoker Kingfish

What: Trophy king mackerel (aka smokers kings)

Where: Outer Banks, North Carolina

When: Fall and winter, best November through February

Who: Anglers adept at procuring live bait, aboard the right boats designed to withstand the rigors of offshore fishing and rough seas. The following charter operations have the know-how and the right gear to get you hooked up:

Hatteras Inlet Tuna Duck Capt. Dan Rooks 252-216-6160 tunaduck.com

Oregon Inlet Fight-N-Lady Capt. Sam Stokes 800-272-5199 fight-n-lady.com

BE READY TO MULTITASK

A kingfish bite can go from slow to red hot in a matter of seconds. In fact, it’s not uncommon to have 3 or 4 strikes at once. So it’s a huge plus to have a crew that can multitask and re-rig leaders, re-bait hooks, reposition lines, gaff fish, etc. as necessary to take full advantage of every opportunity to hook and land a king. Kenny Koci, the mate aboard Tuna Duck, had all the necessary skills and readily jumped from one task to another without missing a beat.

SWS TACKLE BOX

North Carolina Smoker Kingfish

Rods: 7-foot jigging or conventional, 20- to 50-pound class

Reels: Daiwa Saltist 2-speed lever-drag, sizes 30 and 50, or equivalent high-speed conventional reels

Line: 25-pound mono or 30-pound braid with 30 feet of 40-pound fluorocarbon top shot; 3 feet of 60-pound dark stainless-steel cable leader

Hooks: 4X-strong bronze treble hooks, sizes 4 and 6, rigged in tandem; the smaller treble set 6 to 8 inches behind the larger treble

Bait: Live menhaden (aka fatbacks) are best; live butterfish, small bluefish, or dead menhaden in a pinch

THE 50-POUND CLUB

The next day, Donny Cook joined Koci and me as the only anglers. Rooks, as most experienced captains would do, first tried the spot where we’d found the bigger kings on day one. The fish were still there, and they were hungry. It was all hands on deck most of the day, as we fought one hefty kingfish after another with very little time in between.

We ran out of live menhaden shortly after lunch, so we used butterfish and even a few small bluefish we had in the well. That bought us another hour. Next, we resorted to skipping dead menhaden in our wake. The rigging was almost the same — a 3-foot length of wire leader and a pair of small bronze treble hooks rigged in tandem — but instead of impaling the bait through the nose, one of the points of the lead treble goes in under the chin and out the upper lip. That locks both jaws together, the mouth stays shut and the bait doesn’t spin during trolling.

The dead baits got rave reviews from the smoker kings. Several of them launched themselves out of the water after the skipping fatbacks, while others blasted them on the surface, a scant few yards off the transom. The kicker was a monster fish caught by Cook that later weighed a whopping 52 pounds back at Hatteras Harbor Marina.

As the fog closed in on our way back to port, I couldn’t help but think that, even when many restaurants and businesses are closed for the winter, the allure of this great kingfish fishery is enough for me to return to Hatteras in the off-season. Who knows, maybe next time I’ll join the 50-pound club.

The post Catch Smoker Kings Like the Pros appeared first on Salt Water Sportsman.

TROPHY TIME:

The silver missile leapt from the water, flanks and teeth glistening in the sun, a small treble hook planted securely in its jaw.

As it hit the water, the clicker on the portside reel in the T-top holder screamed an alarm as the speed demon on the other end tried to put as much distance as possible between it and the boat.The surface strike and run of kingfish are an adrenaline junkie’s high and the reasons these fish are so popular. There is no place kingfish are more revered than North Carolina, where they respond to a variety of fishing techniques over a long season.

AIRBORNE:

The Pro Knows

Going on 30 years, Jodie Gay has been chasing Carolina kingfish recreationally and as a tournament angler and commercial hook-and-line fisherman. He’s won a number of early North Carolina kingfish tournaments, taking second place at the 2007 SKA nationals, 10th in 2008 and first in 2009. His most recent team holds the record for the largest king ever caught in a tournament in North Carolina, a 68.9-pound smoker. So the man’s got cred.

About 15 years ago, Gay started Blue Water Candy Lures, and his initial products were kingfish and offshore trolling rigs with Mylar skirts because no one else was making them at the time. “When fish are biting, the Mylar doesn’t make much difference,” he says, “but when it’s slow, Mylar out-fishes regular skirts 10 to 1. I started making them for a few captains, and today the company offers hundreds of lures and components for offshore fishing.”

WELCOME ABOARD:

They Never Leave

The latest data says there are two stocks of kingfish, one migrating around the Gulf of Mexico from Florida to Texas, and the second from Florida north to the Carolinas and beyond. But according to Gay, there’s also a body of resident fish that appears to migrate east and west, never leaving North Carolina waters.

The season kicks off in late May or June, with resident fish in full structure mode. “No structure, no fish,” Gay explains. “They are on pretty much any rock, reef or wreck in 65- to 100-foot depths.” Most are 5 to 15 pounds, which are still fun to catch and better to eat. They feed on any small baitfish and respond well to trolled dead baits. It stays the same through the summer, with each structure spot holding a cluster of kings, so be prepared to run and gun from spot to spot.

“September is when the big kings start to show up,” he says. “Those fish move in tighter to shore. Even anglers on the piers catch a fair number of big kings in the fall as they tear up schools of menhaden and mullet. We even catch them in the outflow of big rivers like the Cape Fear. This time of year, live-bait fishing can be absolutely fantastic.” The big fish hang out until the water temperature drops, and by Thanksgiving they move offshore and south, while the resident fish hold on hard bottom west of the Gulf Stream. It might seem counterintuitive, but the fishing actually lasts longer (into November) in the northern part of the state where the Gulf Stream swings in closer to shore, keeping the water warm.

SLICE AND DICE:

Gearing Up

Tackle for kings is surprisingly light. Because slow-trolling is the norm, conventional reels the size of the Penn Fathom 40 loaded with 20-pound monofilament are preferred. A big king will make a ­blistering first run, so line capacity is very important. The ­terminal end gets a few feet of 20- or 30-pound fluorocarbon leader because kingfish have keen eyesight. Most kingfish rods are 7-foot and rated for 10- to 20-pound line. Fast action is best, but with a soft tip to protect against line breakage. It offers better lure and bait presentation, and works equally well with live bait, dead bait and spoons.

Drone Spoon

Blue Water Candy Wedgie

Blue Water Candy Dead Bait Rig

Kings have incredibly sharp teeth, so rigs end in No. 4 camo stainless-steel wire or 30- to 50-pound titanium multistrand cable. Terminal rigs carry one or two No. 4 trebles as stinger hooks, depending on the length of the baitfish. The front hook, a single, holds the bait on the rig while the trebles are lightly pinned along its back so they don’t impede swimming action.

Sometimes the tail treble is left dangling to lie alongside the bait. Dead-bait rigs have weighted heads to keep the bait upright, and both styles of rigs have colorful skirts for flash. Gay’s company makes one called the Wedgie with a sliding wedge-shaped lead-head that planes down a few feet, making it an ideal flat-line rig. Another is simply called the Dead Bait King Rig, and it features a half-ounce jig head to be used either on a flat line or deep.

Drone spoons are still popular for kingfish in the Carolinas, and the presentation is no different from trolling dead-bait rigs: A wire leader is connected behind planers, either on downriggers or flat-lined.

Accurately placed deep baits are important to success, and downriggers are the preferred method for controlled depth fishing. Typically, one rig is trolled at one-third the water depth and the other at two-thirds. If the fish show a preference, the depth is adjusted accordingly. If you don’t have downriggers, you can use planers to get down, though you sacrifice pinpoint depth control.

FUN SIZE:

Practice Session

I spent a day in mid-June fishing with Gay, his teammate Russell Weaver, and Brad Knight, owner of Onslow Bay Boatworks and a formidable tournament competitor in his own right. With the arrival of the big fish still a couple of months away, the plan was to troll dead bait along structure spots for resident fish.

“Cigar minnows, small ballyhoo and spoons work just fine through the summer,” Gay advises. He set out a four-rod pattern with two up and two down. The first flat line was set more than 100 feet back, the second about 60 feet. Both had Wedgie rigs, one with a cigar minnow on the single treble, the other a ballyhoo with a double-stinger hook setup.

The ­Wedgie not only dives a few feet, keeping the bait in the water, but it also imparts an enticing wiggle that makes it come alive behind the sparkly skirt. The first downrigger was armed with a standard kingfish dead-bait rig with a cigar minnow and dropped back 50 feet from the release clip. The weight was lowered to 50 feet in 70 feet of water before he repeated the process, lowering the second bait to 30 feet.

Basic Spread

“When we’re fishing live bait in tournaments, we might add a center bait close to the boat, sometimes right in the prop wash,” Gay says. “You can also use chum or menhaden oil dribbled into the water from a drip bottle to bring the kings to your pattern.”

Trolling for kings is done at relatively slow speeds. Dead-bait rigs work from 1 to 7 knots, and you can mix them with spoons if you keep the speed at over 3 knots. Live baits are pulled from idle speed to 2 knots so they won’t spin or tire quickly, and you can mix in dead baits as long as you keep the speed around 2 knots. We hit a half-dozen spots by noon, concentrating on midwater structure and catching one or two fish from 5 to 15 pounds at each spot, which is typical early in the year.

LOSS PREVENTION:

Smokers’ Lounge

When the bigger fish move up from the south later in the year, the trolling techniques are the same, but the cast net comes out and the day starts by filling the livewell with menhaden, rarely hard to find along the beachfronts. The dead-bait rigs are switched out for live-bait rigs with skirts and no weight, and the chum and menhaden oil are put into play.

The closer fish on shallower structure come alive, but the kings will ­forgo structure to attack schools of bait concentrated near the beach, around shoals, inlets and river mouths during outgoing tides. The fish run larger, 25 to 35 pounds. The largest fish show a preference for feeding around the shallow shoals that abound at the northern and southern extremes of the North Carolina coast and, when they are in residence, 40-pounders can be commonplace. Many of the fall tournaments are won with 50-pound-class fish taken on the shoals. If a big king is on your bucket list, this is the time and place to catch one.

The post Carolina Kingfish Tips appeared first on Salt Water Sportsman.

FARSIGHTED: Don’t leave the dock without good binoculars to spot bird activity, baitfish pods and fish feeding on the surface.
LIKELY SPOTS: Target kings around oil and gas production platforms, buoys, behind anchored shrimp boats, along rips, under birds and around bait pods.
WHERE TO LOOK: Search for structure, anchored shrimpers, or schooling baitfish in clear, dark-green ­water from 15 to 50 ­miles offshore.

Along the Texas coast, fishing for speedy kingfish is a summer smash hit. The fish run big, they are abundant, easy to find and more than willing to attack a variety of lures and natural baits. But here’s the real kicker: Kings love to smash topwaters — in fact, they are one of the most exciting species to target with surface lures.

Kingfish are opportunistic feeders that rarely pass up a school of baitfish. They make good use of their great speed and sharp dentures to slash baits on the run, then double back to ­consume their dead or injured victims.

Wire leaders are a must for kings. Their razor-sharp teeth will otherwise snip through your mono and even braid with ease. I use 60-pound Offshore ­Angler No. 6 leader wire for just about all my kingfish outings, whether trolling or casting. Though, at times — usually when fishing larger baits — I go up to 80-pound No. 7 wire. By the way, the Offshore Angler wire is dark brown, far less conspicuous than silver. It also has a small diameter; No. 6 wire is ­.016-inch, and No. 7 is ­.018-inch, making it desirable for the same reason. Plus it makes a haywire twist — the favored wire connection for swivels, hooks and lures — more easily.

Off the Texas Gulf Coast, ­target kings around oil and gas rigs, buoys, behind anchored shrimp boats, along rips, under birds and around pods of baitfish anywhere from 15 to 50 miles offshore, in clear, dark-green water. Capt. Platt, one of the top tournament anglers on the Gulf Coast, says he gets the most bites from the surface down to about 50 feet. He usually pulls two live hardtails at once, setting them back some 40 to 60 feet off the transom and resorts to bump-trolling to cover various depths with the live baits, a tactic that often produces some real smokers.

When targeting kingfish, it’s best to come rigged and ready. Rigging in bumpy seas is a challenge, and you don’t want to miss the bite because you are still making leaders. Carry several rods to cover all the bases. A good rule of thumb is two rods rigged with topwater lures, two rigged for trolling and another two for fishing either live or dead baits.

Live baits, especially small, freshly caught pogies and hardtails, are worth their weight in gold when kings are the intended target. Pogies typically congregate in big schools roaming in open water, and they can be cast-netted or caught on small sabiki or gold-hook rigs (a leader with five or more hooks rigged on droppers and a sinker at the end). Hardtails tend to stick closer to structure. Threadfin herring, more delicate, require good flow in the livewell and a minimum rate of 1 gallon of water per bait to survive. Hardtails are hardier, but the ideal size is 8 to 10 inches, which requires ample livewell space to carry the 20 baits recommended for a day of kingfishing.

TACKLE BOX: 6- or 8-inch Bomber Certified Depth in bonito, google-eye or silver-mullet pattern for deeper trolling.

TACKLE BOX: 6-inch Bomber Heavy Duty Long A

TACKLE BOX: Heddon Super Spook in bone, blue-and-silver, or chartreuse for ­topwater

TACKLE BOX: Bomber J-Duster King Rig

The post Texas Summer Kingfish Bite appeared first on Salt Water Sportsman.