Livebaiting for Kingfish - Tips and Techniques

Kingfish is one of the few species that the rest of the world cannot compete with NZ on, with the bulk of the world records all caught in New Zealand. Alistair Arkell looks at one of the most successful ways of targeting this special species – with livebaits…

Kingfish are spread around the globe, common in most places with temperate waters like New Zealand. They are found in Australia, Japan and USA’s south-west coast, although in the States they are classed as a slightly different species. There is also a very similar looking fish in Europe that grow to a great size, but alas, are not quite the same greenback we get here.

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There are many ways to catch kingfish, and some methods are more exciting and successful than others. Jigging, topwater casting, livebaiting, soft-baiting, trolling bibbed lures, using dead baits and saltwater fly fishing are all the common methods used to target this species, and each have their days where they out-fish other techniques.

My preferred approaches are jigging and deploying livebaits. While I have had some good results using slowpitch jigs recently, the most successful method for catching big kings is still livebaiting.

There are three ways to successfully livebait in NZ: the classic livebait under a balloon technique, dropping livebaits in depth to where kingfish are holding using a ‘White Island rig’ and, my personal favourite, slow trolling baits around shallow reef structure.

Trolling baits is the most exciting way to catch kings as typically you are fishing in reefy terrain that is suitably shallow or has a drop-off somewhere close. When you get a big fish on surrounded by rocky terrain, it really gets the heart rate up and quite often some clever boat driving is required to land the fish. It sure makes for some exciting moments and the whole crew usually becomes involved in securing the fish.

The key to livebaiting is having the right bait, although sometimes catching the right livebaits is harder than catching the kingfish. Many a fine fisherman has been all out of livebaits and been forced to watch as packs of hungry kingfish swim past. Typically, with livebaiting, you want to be fishing with the baitfish found in the area, so if you’re fishing in clean, blue water, blue koheru is the go, along with big kahawai and trevally. If you are fishing in a muddy harbour, mullet is what you need. In the Hauraki Gulf, the most common bait fish is jack mackerel.

If you’re trolling your livebaits, think big! The bigger the bait, the bigger the kingfish. I like kahawai around the 1-1.5kg mark and big blue koheru. But of course, the latter is often harder to catch than the actual kingfish you are targeting. Jack mackerel also work well, but they just need to be of a decent size. Big snapper and kahawai also have a bit of a liking for smaller jack mack baits, not that we would turn our noses up at a mega red should one swallow the bait.

Livebaiting for Kingfish - Tips and Techniques

Kingfish aren't the only ones that like slow-trolled livebaits.

A good tip if you’re new to slow trolling is to start off with smaller baits to hone your skills. Yes, the size of the fish you catch will be smaller, but once you have got the technique sorted, then it’s a simple case of upping your bait size to up your kingfish size.

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Tackle wise

I like an overhead reel with plenty of drag, spooled with 80lb multi-colour braid on a PE8 jig rod. My current setup is a Shimano Torium 16PG with a Grappler PE8 jig rod, spooled with 80lb Kairiki braid. The reel comfortably runs 12-13kg of drag which is perfect and the rod is capable of much higher drag pressures than this, so there is really no risk of breaking the rod.

Livebaiting for Kingfish - Tips and Techniques

The writers preferred setup for slow-trolling livebaits: a Shimano Torium 16PG reel spooled with 80lb multi-coloured braid, mounted on a PE8 jig rod. 

On the terminal tackle front, I run a 6- or 8-ounce egg sinker on my braid mainline, with a 2-3 metre 100lb OCEA fluoro trace, connected to an NT swivel to hold it all together. (NT swivels are available from leading tackle stores). Hook wise, a recurve hook is your best option and I use a non-offset VMC recurve hook, which eliminates all gut hooking of the fish. For the table, I only keep smaller 10-12kg fish to eat and the rest of the fish get a well-deserved reprieve.

Once you have your livebaits secured and your tackle is ready to go, it’s a case of finding a suitable fishing location

Finding a spot

The key ingredients we are looking for are current and a source of baitfish, something that is typically found off just about every prominent reef structure or coastal point on the east coast of NZ. So you have plenty of options when it comes to finding new ground. If the underwater topography is shallow with a deep-water drop-off nearby, then you’re really in business. Grab a paper chart or turn on the Navionics web app, pour yourself a rum and let your fingers do the hunting. This will enable you to plan where you are going to catch your livebaits and where will you deploy them. Certain spots will always fish better on certain tides and it’s just a case of getting out on the salt and fishing. You can have all the theory in the world, but there is no substitute for putting baits in the water.

If you’ve found some new ground, scout the area first and slowly drive around and see how fishy the area looks. If you’re marking bait fish and current, then you’re in the right area and it’s time to deploy your baits. Having a MinnKota makes things easy, as it allows you to set a nice slow speed and drive around the likely areas by remote. If not, no biggie, you will just need to drive around knocking the engine in and out of gear, otherwise you will travel too fast and the poor livebait will become a skip bait. Big kahawai are the exception as they can handle a bit more horsepower.

Rigging baits

Rigging smaller baits is easy – a simple hook through the nose and you’re ready to go. Just be careful not to break the nose or make a mess of the fish’s face as the hook will come off far too easily. With bigger koheru or kahawai baits, I like to bridle rig them with a small gap between hook and fish. This enables a clean hookup with no risk of the hook burying itself back into the bait or the kingfish ripping the bait off the hook before you get a hookup. I use simple wax rigging thread and needles and if you buy quality, you only buy once. A leading tackle store will be able to help you with this and the best option would be to google rigging baits and watch a how-to video.

Livebaiting for Kingfish - Tips and Techniques

Quality bait needles and rigging floss are a key part of your livebaiting kit.

Once the bait is in the water, you need to let approximately 30-40 metres of line out or whatever feels appropriate for the depth you are in. Remember, you don’t want the sinker hitting the bottom or you risk getting snagged. With slow trolling the angler needs to hold the rod and reel in hand and hold the line angle slightly above parallel. I use a star drag reel, so I leave the clicker on and the reel out of gear. There is no mistaking a bite as the fish will simply rip the line out of your hand. Make sure the clicker is on to prevent a bird’s nest!

When to set the hook?

When you are using a recurve hook, there is no need to aggressively strike on contact. Basically, once you are comfortable the fish has the bait in its mouth you can simply click the reel into gear, slightly lift the rod to feel the weight come on and then set the hook a bit harder. By this stage the hook will have rolled into the corner of the kingfish’s mouth and the fish will be tearing away from the boat. Once line is leaving the reel under a clicker, I typically wait three seconds to set the hook. With the old-style livebait hooks, the technique was to count to 10 and then strike. But by that stage the fish has swallowed the bait and chances are it’s gut-hooked. This is okay if you want to keep the fish, but hopeless if you want to let it go. With recurve hooks you will get a far superior hook-up rate to J hooks and you can go to bed at night knowing you released the fish in the best possible condition. There really is no need to use anything but a re-curve hook for livebaiting.

Slow trolling livebaits is a very exciting and active way of fishing. You get to feel every bump and knock, and you get to understand when the bait is getting anxious and kingfish are in the area. I like early morning and the ebb tide for this style of fishing. If you can get all the above ingredients in place with an early morning outgoing, then you should be in for a good day.


January - 2020 - Alistair Arkell

New Zealand Fishing News Magazine.
Copyright: NZ Fishing Media Ltd.
Re-publishing elsewhere is prohibited

 

 

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