Kingfish Capers - Part 1

Adam Clancey

Last updated 09:21 14/04/2010

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Nikki Clancey-Peetz with a good inshore kingfish that fell for a well presented live bait.

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Taking on the street hoods - Part 1
Have you ever been mugged? Well, in fishing terms, getting mugged means being assaulted by a fish in a bullying fashion with little respect for your so-called angling prowess.

In many situations, the prime suspect for this kind of thuggery is the yellowtail kingfish, or kingie as they’re more commonly known. The (nice) thing about kingies is that they are the most abundant and accessible reasonably-large gamefish in the country, turning up from the Three Kings Islands in the North Island to Banks Peninsula in the South Island. And, unlike many game fish, the kingfish does not only hunt in clear, warm blue waters offshore, instead being equally happy to create havoc in inshore waters like harbours, estuaries and river mouths. That makes them easily accessible to the land-based, kayak and small-boat anglers who fish these areas.

Kingfish are an immensely powerful fish; their bodies contain lots of red muscle and they are propelled by large, grunty tails, providing both stamina and speed – useful attributes in any street fighter. Also, when hooked, they have a tendency to run into reefs or around structure, frequently fouling and breaking even heavy line in the process. As a result, any weaknesses in tackle and/or in angling ability are likely to be exposed.

Dealing with inshore kingfish requires tackle similar to that used offshore, although you can scale down a little in certain areas. Tackle should be in the 10-15kg range minimum (spooling the reel with heavier braid around 24kg is not a bad idea in really tough terrain).

Two versatile outfits are particularly suitable for most kingie fishing. The first outfit is used for live baiting and jigging, and consists of an overhead rod about two metres long, accompanied by a high-speed reel with a ratio of at least 5:1. The rod should have lots of backbone for lifting and be neither too soft or have an action that’s too fast.

The other rig is for use with poppers, soft-plastics and casting baits. This outfit needs either a solid, well-constructed spin reel or a high quality overhead designed for casting. My preference is the spin reel, as it allows for easy casting of light lures and baits. The rod should be at least two metres long, with plenty of power in the butt. A medium to fast action is good, as this allows for quick and powerful casts using poppers and dead baits. Line should be 8-15kg, depending on the terrain below.

Another important item of tackle is a good trace. When I refer to trace in this sense, I’m referring to a wind-on-style trace rather than a leader, with the latter often attached to the trace via a swivel. Suitable material for this is 37kg mono or braid, with four metres of it tied to your main line using a Uni knot, No Name knot or any strong and dependable joining knot that will slip through the guides when tied with braid or mono.

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The purposes of the trace are to provide extra protection from abrasion if taken around structure, and, once wound onto the reel, for additional pressure to be applied at the tail end of the fight. For leader material I like to use fluorocarbon; the breaking strain varies according to the terrain, size of bait or lure, and the style of fishing, but, as a rule of thumb, a minimum would be 24kg, with 100kg generally the maximum.
Kingfish have a varied diet when found inshore. They will eat anything from sprats and piper to kahawai and mullet, but I have also found they are partial to flounder and butterfish.

Their ability to hunt large baitfish and swallow them whole makes the fishing very exciting; the surface strikes are often spectacular. In order of preference, I would say my favourite live baits are as follows: kahawai, koheru, slimy mackerel, piper, mullet, yellowtail and sprats. However, this can change quite dramatically geographically. For example, in North Island west coast harbours such as the Manukau and Kaipara, a live mullet is possibly the best, while in Northland’s east coast harbours a piper is definitely the kingies’ food of choice. Whether this difference is due to the abundance of particular baitfish, I am unsure.
What I am sure of though, is that how you present the live bait will have a massive effect on the way a kingie responds to it. However, this will require you to make some critical judgement calls; here are a couple of examples:

Say you are fishing a fairly shallow harbour with a good current that presumably gets things stirred up, such as occurs around many wharves. In such situations I tend to use mackerel or smallish kahawai baits attached to a short, heavy trace, held on the bottom by a Breakaway Sinker. This enables me to control the bait and keep it in position.

However, if fishing a clear rocky outcrop with lots of kelp, I’d prefer to have a kahawai or piper swimming on the surface suspended under a small float or balloon in the hope of attracting the attention of cruising predators.

Different baits require subtle changes to the rig, especially the hook size and trace thickness. For example, if you tried to live-bait a piper on a 9/0 live-bait hook and 100kg trace in a swift current, it would soon die and be nowhere near as effective. Far better to use a small, well-positioned 4/0 hook and 60lb trace in this instance. Little subtleties such as these make a surprisingly big difference while you are fishing.

When everything comes together and the fight is on, it can be a very short time between a hook-up and a mugging, so you should have a fight plan ready beforehand. This could involve having a buoy on your anchor rope so you can quickly chuck it over the side and follow your fish and/or move away from reefs and structure, or simply having an idea as to where you’re going to try and land a fish if fishing from the shore.

You can fight a kingie with a ‘rip, tear and bust’ approach, and in many cases this will work, but trying to overpower a big fish too quickly will often panic it into boring down into reef and structure with even more determination. As a result, applying smooth, constant pressure until the fish tires is often more productive.

The legal limit for kingfish is 75cm. That is a large fish, weighing around 6-8kg, so it is important to measure any fish you intend to keep. I personally use recurved hooks whenever practical for live baiting; kingies swallow baits whole, and the recurved hooks tend to slide back out until the jaw latch is reached and grabbed, leading to more mouth hook-ups and reducing kingfish mortality as a result.

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