# what have or haven't you tried for kingies



## keza (Mar 6, 2007)

Each time i hit the water at Clovelly i take several options of tackle i want to try out on them and never end up doing it.

- Haven't tried a popper yet but if they are hitting the mojos on the surface would they hit a popper ?
- I have a jig in the shape of a squid 
- A feather jig
- the first kingie i got there was on a hard body but i haven't pulled a rapala around there in a while.

I hate the thought that i have with me somehing that will drive them crazy but i haven't used it yet.
What have others tried ?

They seemed to like it when i pimped up my jig head a bit. (note to self: kingies are into bling)
I got some good hits on a blue and white kokoda but the hook wasn't up to the job, put a bigger hook in and never got another hit.
Tried some squid today, i'll cross that off the list for a while, not a touch.

I know wopfish tried playing them barry manilow, they haven't surfaced since.

any thoughts ?


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## Davey G (Jan 15, 2006)

I've caught them on trolled lures (Rapala CD7 / CD9 and others), caught them on live bait (yakkas and poddy mullet), caught them on surface poppers (Halco Roosta) however BY FAR my most amount of kings have been caught on 5-6" soft plastic stickbaits (Saltwater Assasins) in the white/silver fleck colour. The sp's seem to catch fish when jigged, left to dangle or raced across the surface.

I've also sat on top of massive schools of kings cruising under my yak and not been able to tempt a bite....THATS frustrating!

Mind you all my fish have been 62cm or less and were caught between October 2006 and February 2007 (havent caught one yet this season) :?  .

I'll be getting a couple of jigs and giving that a go as that certainly seems to excite the fish. When i head out I usually carry 3 rods, 1 with a large trolling lure and 2 with soft plastics. If theres no surface action i usually rig up a popper and when i get some jigs i'll be doing that as well.

Its been TOO long between kingfish for me!


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## wopfish (Dec 4, 2006)

Kings are known squid takers (in general) and they love the ink sac broken and all gooey - its like honey for them. So in terms of the fave bits its the guts first, then the head, then strips of the body.

I have heard that kings do not like rattle noise - so those HBS that rattle or even the split rings/trebles can spook them - Ive also heard totally contrary to that thought.

Another fave food of theirs is Garfish - the stick bates are imitating that IMHO. Garries I think come on later in the summer - so maybe stickbaits of all shapes and sizes will be more readily excepted.

OK also the phsyche of the kingfish is like a puppy dog - wave something at it - run it past its nose - entice it / flash it / jiggle it - but it needs - to be fast and attention grabbing and out of inquisitiveness they might hit it.

Ive learned some of this from Craig McGill and Alex Bellisimo - both i would say Sydney fishing legends and have captured some monster kings on a consisitent basis.

Ive seen kings been over fed on squid and have munched on pillies in a burley trail !?

Ive seen then take yakkers of a bait jig bringing it up to the surface.

I'm sure there are exceptions to all of these encounters

I too have the squid shaped lure - never any luck on kings but plenty of sambos !!!!

I think xmas trees could be good - need a bit of speed though!!!


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## wopfish (Dec 4, 2006)

I'm hoping that those Clovelly kings will be around all summer and will get fatter and fatter!!!! This way we can hopefully try all manner of techinques on them - that is as long as the Pro Fisherman with the lead line and cuttlefish bait doesnt take them all or the crazed seal or Gatesy for that matter!!!!!!!

We are only jelous !!

I have some serious large poppers that i took to Samoa for GTs - it would be fun seeing a meter plus Kingy taking that!!!


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## sbd (Aug 18, 2006)

Squid has no equal as a kingie bait, but it has to be today's (jigged) squid, even yesterday's squid (unfrozen and never having touched fresh water) is only half as effective (I have no hard evidence for the empirical nature of this claim). Heads and guts are the best, with an ink berley. Dave73 cuts fringes on strips to simulate tentacles, I favour a long thin triangle with the thin end flapping. Fresh squid is very popular with every other fish in the sea though. Bait shop or even fish market squid is pretty much ineffective (you get the odd dumb one).

Live yakkas work well, fresh (dead livie) fillets or butterflied (fillet from the tail end and cut the spine out but leave fillets attached) are ok too.

Live slimies work even better than yakkas, as do their fillets.

I caught 5 kings over winter on pillies, but I'd rather try other methods this season.

I heard several reports last year of people picking up kings on bait jigs, but I don't think this is optimal.

There is no comparison for me between the raw excitement of catching them on plastic and any sort of bait fishing, even jigging doesn't quite do it for me (though undoubtedly effective and I'll change my mind fast when I jig up the big one). This may be because I fish the plastics on lighter gear than bait.

I've tried a big popper at Clovelly with no luck, but I think it would work in the right situation. Maybe a small one would come through. I saw some small sinking poppers (yep) in a mag that would have much better casting range than the featherweight little ones.

I've got some feather jigs but never get around to using them.

I've never caught one on a trolled hardbody but I didn't really do this 'til I got the yak.



keza said:


> I hate the thought that i have with me somehing that will drive them crazy but i haven't used it yet.


Have you tried Aramis?


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## keza (Mar 6, 2007)

sbd said:


> Have you tried Aramis?


do you mean the fragrance or the Musketeer ?


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## RedPhoenix (Jun 13, 2006)

Unfortunately, due to the change in ownership of this web site and the lack of response by the owners to my requests to remove my email address from all administrative-level notifications and functionality, I have decided to remove my posts on AKFF. Thank you for the great times, the fantastic learning experiences and the many many fish. If you are desperate for the old content of this particular post, it is available below base64 encoded and bzip2 compressed.

Red.

----

QlpoOTFBWSZTWUWcuHcAABJfgAAQUACAEqBCAAo/778wIAB1CVQaHqADQ0yGagap6aIGg8k0DIGjyJzDmijwjkc2uhiICQvFYLssiUZm4IKIDKNys5bA6VQlGhJDXMM7MtXm4iTPcUwD4geGl0ortFH2AW4VMFAKK0O/F3JFOFCQRZy4dw==


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## wopfish (Dec 4, 2006)

Further to Gatesys point - if you catch a king - another will often follow it up - so if you can afford to leave king no 1 in the water then chuck a lure / bait to his mate you could get a double hook up - saying that Ive seen this done from a boat - not a yak??

woppie


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## JT (May 25, 2006)

Gatesy said:


> There is not much I haven't caught a King on but they can be decidedly choosy at times.
> 
> I have caught them on just about every time of frozen servo bait you could imagine but have found that *Fresh* is really the only way to go.
> 
> ...


Isn't tethering supposedly illegal now?

JT


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## bombora (Mar 8, 2006)

Smallish bucktail jigs (quarter once) are a secret weapon, even when the kings are shy. The jig has a luminous green painted head and red thread binding the tail, which is a combination of flouro white bucktail and various artificial fibres like crystal flash or comes alive, for some sparkle. Jig it, waft it, or rip it back, they love em. If they are really really shy sweeten the jig with a tiny strip of fresh caught squid. They are home made and a lot of fun and catch everything (and to be honest look very much like a beefed up sabiki bait jig lure). I' am a bore on bucktails but they work, and end up much much cheaper (and better for the environment) than plastics. And there isn't a plastic on this planet which has the action of bucktail or other natural fibres. 
Smallish thin cup faced poppers are fun but they can get wise to em pretty quickly. Another way which would be a bit hard on a yak is to switch bait em. If they are following but not biting, rip a jig quickly back to the boat and have another fisho cast a diffrent type of lure (or bait) next to your jig just as it's coming to the surface.


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## paulb (Nov 12, 2006)

Hi Bombora - any chance you can post a piccy of the bucktail lure ? 
Prior to discovering salt&pepper mojo's, I've caught smallish kingfish on black&gold squidgy's and the odd one on squid strips.


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## Straddie (Apr 19, 2007)

Popper works well for first 5 minutes of sunrise, then I resort to having to wait for the mid morning cruise and tempt them with a floating, wafting, loose line bait (either live or dead) The take is very subtle and slow and usually the fish will hook themselves as they swim away with the crowd. The dead bait has to be bite size. Giving away of line during the take is encouraged. After hook up, the other kingies will hang around and try to shoulder the hooked fish and will follow the hooked fish right to the surface.


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## DGax65 (Jun 7, 2006)

FWIW: The top bait for California kingies is live squid. If squid isn't available the best live baits are

Pacific Chub Mackerel (Greenback Mac)









or the Jack Mackerel (Spanish Mac)









Kingies also love the irons









Salas jigs are the weapon of choice for kingies. There are probably a dozen different companies making irons, but the Salas 6X are, by far, the most popular. There are heavy irons, called yo-yo irons, that are used for vertical jigging and lighter surface irons (actually aluminum or some other light metal). Blue and white is the most popular color. The yo-yo iron is about the most effective method of fishing for kingies once the water gets cold. I usually add assist hooks to the top of my yo-yo irons


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## DGax65 (Jun 7, 2006)

kraley said:


> DGax65 said:
> 
> 
> > I tried the Salas that you sent me last time out at Clovelly and it didn't produce while some other jigs did, but that has more to do with me than the fish.
> > I'll give it another go....


I hope I didn't get any of my negative fishing mojo on it. I have to be very careful about that. Sometimes my fishing mojo is so bad that it rubs off on inanimate objects. :shock: :lol:


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## Raumati (May 22, 2006)

This book is well worth a look, the author has taken them on jigs, flies, poppers and even sent down a legal [750 mm] kingie as live bait when fishing off the Poor Knights.


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## JT (May 25, 2006)

Raumati said:


> This book is well worth a look, the author has taken them on jigs, flies, poppers and even sent down a legal [750 mm] kingie as live bait when fishing off the Poor Knights.


What book would that be Raumati (sorry if I missed something somewhere)?

JT


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## Raumati (May 22, 2006)

http://fishingmag.co.nz/book-kitteridge-kingfish.htm

Er no you didn't miss anything, I forgot to post the link.

Anyway, its wprth a look if you want to chase kingies.My mission this summer is to try and land a legal sized one.


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## wopfish (Dec 4, 2006)

One thing which I think might be the go in Clovelly which I have not tried is drop shotting a big plastic down there - actually it doesnt have to be that big. But you will probably need a decent weight to get it down there plus the tackle to then play the fish plus the weight. Its also a good way to find the school if they decide to take the dropshotted lure. Trolling or difting at a sluggish pace plus the rise and fall of the swell should impart some decent action on the lure.

This way is kind of in a very crude analogy half way between cast and retriveing and jigging - or trolling on a down rigger......... :?

Any thoughts ??


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## wopfish (Dec 4, 2006)

Hey Raumati

I thought in NZ there were no 'illegal' kings that they all grew up to be big bruisers and went from sperm to hoodlum without any puberty!!!


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## Peril (Sep 5, 2005)

wopfish said:


> One thing which I think might be the go in Clovelly which I have not tried is drop shotting a big plastic down there - actually it doesnt have to be that big. But you will probably need a decent weight to get it down there plus the tackle to then play the fish plus the weight. Its also a good way to find the school if they decide to take the dropshotted lure. Trolling or difting at a sluggish pace plus the rise and fall of the swell should impart some decent action on the lure.
> 
> This way is kind of in a very crude analogy half way between cast and retriveing and jigging - or trolling on a down rigger......... :?
> 
> Any thoughts ??


How will you know when the jackets have finished with it?


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## wopfish (Dec 4, 2006)

Aggghhhh Mr Peril - thank you for bringing me back down to earth - mmmmm kind of forgot about those critters


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## Raumati (May 22, 2006)

> Hey Raumati
> 
> I thought in NZ there were no 'illegal' kings that they all grew up to be big bruisers and went from sperm to hoodlum without any puberty!!!


Only in my dreams mate.

The legal size is 750mm here, whats is it where you are?


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## wopfish (Dec 4, 2006)

Raumati - Hey mate 65 cm - it was only 60cm a few months ago - joking aside I thought that Kiwiland was the Kingfish capital of the world!!! Where are you in NZ near some serious action ??? Bay of islands Ive heard is a hot spot. I can see that your legal models could be plenty of a handfull at that size!!!

Woppie


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## Raumati (May 22, 2006)

I live on the kapiti coast near the bottom of the north island, there are decent kingie spots here but they pretty far offshore so a bit risky in all but the best weather.Check out this thread for an idea,

http://www.fishing.net.nz/asp%5Fforums/ ... ?TID=23844

The Bay of Islands is a pretty hot game fishing spot but the biggest kingies are found around the offshore islands on the east coast [the Poor Knights etc] .The blokes who fish there use 35kg set ups with live bait or jigs.
You guys get mackeral, gts ,cobia and samsonfish , I'd love to have a some of those over here.

This summers mission [read obsession] is a legal one!


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## Phoenix (Jan 12, 2006)

Fresh bait will always out perform frozen bait.


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## wopfish (Dec 4, 2006)

Hey stuff being a Zombie for a living doing these dawn starts with 4am alarm wake up calls - what about fishing the kings on sunset - anybody tried this with much luck ???

Mr Zombie


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## Milt (Sep 2, 2005)

Apollogies if this question has been asked already! How good are the plastic immitation squid? A freind just bought some 8" and 10" inch ones that we are wanting to use to tempt some kingfish in Portland come February.

My immediate thought was to jig them off shore, what would you blokes do with them as far rigging them up? Any detailed infor would be greatly appreciated.

Mitl,


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## Raumati (May 22, 2006)

Steve Tapp who gives kayak fishing seminars here in NZ recommends trolling sp squid, he also said he runs a welding rod through them for the hook and line to attach to rather than a jig head.I'll see if I can dig out the copy on fishing news and give a more detailed answer.


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## Milt (Sep 2, 2005)

Many thanks Rauamati,

I look forward to any more information, I haven't yet caught one and am dying to christen my new Daiwa Saltist with one atleast 10KG in weight.

Milt,


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