Want to Score Big Kings? Go Stealth.

Greg Holley/Team Live Wire

There are as many techniques and philosophies as there are boats on the water, but when we want or need to catch big kingfish, we go stealth. Smaller swivels, wire, hooks, line, fluorocarbon and less drag can be the difference in boating average fish or the fish that will fill a picture frame or make a pay day.

Are there exceptions? Sure. Have anglers caught big kingfish on heavy tackle? Sure. But as an overall rule, we feel the big fish come on lighter tackle. Our reasoning based upon a couple of facts.

Kingfish, as most predatory fish, have excellent eyesight. We feel that kingfish know that something is wrong with the bait. As natural as we try to make our spread, it’s not as natural as schooling bait. Why do the strike? Maybe under certain circumstances they don’t care. Regardless, the lighter the rig the bait has to fight and the less visible the rigs, the more it improves our chances of our bait becoming kingfish lunch.

Second, kingfish are a slow-growing fish. A 40-pound female kingfish may be 16 years old, and a 50-pounder as old as 20 years. These are fish that have seen a lot, and have survived. Most average fishermen haven’t even had a strike from a fish this big. Even though it is tough to fight a large fish on light tackle, we feel that we may not have the opportunity with bulkier tackle.

Okay. What do I mean when I say light tackle? In some circumstances I don’t mean less, just smaller. A perfect example of this is the Spro power swivel. Spro manufactures extremely small stainless steal swivels that are incredibly strong for their size. The most popular among tournament fishermen is the tiny 50-pound swivel and the new, even smaller 35-pound swivel. To draw a mental picture, the 50-pound swivel is smaller than a BB, and the 35-pounder is 30 percent smaller than that.

When selecting wire for our rigs, we look for #3 and #4 as dark in color as possible. We use the #3 for our lead and the #4 for the stinger. Because of the way kingfish usually attack the bait, the fish will usually be fought on the stinger hook. So we use a little heavier wire on the stinger. I’ve not been able to tell a great difference in the toughness of different brands, but color will vary between brands and even packages of the same brand. We feel that the darker the wire, the less visible it is to kingfish.

There are many different beliefs on how long the lead wire should be. Some say 36 inches, and some only use 12 inches. We feel that 18 inches gives us what we need. That is enough to protect our line from the king’s sharp teeth, but doesn’t keep us from being tail-whipped. Many fish are lost when the fish is running and catches its tail in the line. The strong tail of the kingfish can part the line if not protected. To solve this problem, we incorporate fluorocarbon as part of our leader. This leader material is almost invisible under water and is extremely tough. We’ve not been tail-whipped since we starting using fluorocarbon three years ago. Normally, we will use a 10-foot section of this leader between the mono and the swivel connected to the wire. There are a few manufactures. We like the Seaguar fluorocarbon in 20 pound test because it seems to be more flexible to tie and is tough as nails.

We use a small diameter hybrid fishing line made by Yo-zuri in 15 and 20 pound test. This is a very tough and durable line with great knot strength. It is expensive, but because it is waterproof, the line retains its durability much longer, so we don’t have to change line as much. The benefits of smaller diameter line is less drag in the water, which gives us better feel when fighting a fish, and making it easier to keep the trolling spread in order. Because we use the fluorocarbon leader, we don’t feel the line color is very important as long as the driver is able to see the line when someone is fighting the fish.

We like using small black hooks on our rigs. Our basic pogy rig will have a #1 or 1/0 live bait nose hook. The stinger hook will be a #6 treble. We like the Gamakatsu 2X treble. It is really the size of a #5, which we feel is the perfect size. It is a strong enough hook to do the job and very sharp. One trick I like to use when using skirts put a treble hook in the wire behind the skirt to allow the eye of the bait to be seen. I will add the treble 3 to 5 inches in front of the nose hook. When the fish is fighting, the more hooks it can find the better the chances we have of landing the fish. We use a variety of Kingbuster skirts, depending on the area and water clarity. Lots of anglers don’t use skirts. We feel that we might not catch as many fish, but better fish come on skirted rigs. Similar to bass fishing, it is known that more fish can be caught fishing a worm, but larger fish come on plugs and spinner baits.

When fishing lighter rigs, it is a must to fish with a reel with a quality drag system and to know how to fight a fish on 2 to 3 pounds of drag. Kingfish have a boney mouth and head. This means, more than not, there will not be a good hook set. Putting too much pressure on the hook set will cause the hook to pull. Because of their superior line capacity and drags, we use Accurate reels with a 6.1to 1 ratio. This allows us to let the fish fight the drag when it is running, and retrieve line quickly if the fish is running toward the boat or we are chasing the fish. As a general rule, we let the fish fight the drag only until we determine how well we have the fish hooked. The biggest mistake we see anglers make is to lose their patience, and fight the fish prematurely. Let the fish run, and use the boat to catch up. After a few runs, the fish will tire from fighting the drag. It can be hard to make yourself not fight the fish, but we are more successful landing fish using this technique.

As stated before, there are plenty of different feelings out there on catching large kingfish, but this is what seems to work for us. Smaller can be better. Go stealth.