Serious about King Mackerel fishing? Whether we think of ourselves as experts or beginners, here’s a few quick helpful hints and tips when you’re fishing for King Mackerel.
Give Priority to Live Baits. Having live baits has always been a top priority to our King Mackerel fishing arsenal. Is it mandatory? No. Is it advantageous? In my opinion, yes! Get your livewell full of live baits anywhere you can. If you don’t find any on your way out to your fishing grounds, well find out what King Mackerel are feeding on out at your spot. If there are bluefish, blue runners, cigar minnows, etc on or near our fishing spots, we are going to jig some of those baits up to use. This is what we call matching the hatch! What if there are no baits on the surface to catch? Send down a sabiki rig or small shiny vertical jig. That usually does the trick. King Mackerel even hit bottom “trash” baits like pinfish and tomtates when they’re hungry, so don’t throw them back!
Don’t leave home without Dead / Frozen Baits. What if someone absolutely cannot find live baits to use for Kings? The answer: always take along some sort of frozen baits like ballyhoo or cigar minnows. King Mackerel will hit these just like if they were really alive. After all, when you troll dead baits, you’re presenting them on rigs which make them look alive anyway.
Always have a gaff! You have a net on your boat? That’s great. But you need a gaff for King Mackerel. With a combination of hooks and teeth, that can be a disaster in a net. With a gaff, all you have to do is reach out and stick the fish and bring him aboard. Also, don’t even think about reaching out in the water and grabbing a big Kingfish in with your hands either. It won’t work too well. You can do this with a snake/teenage fish, but not the big boys! Gaffs are so much easier!
Don’t let bite-offs fool you! Let’s say you were trolling baits around and you think you had a King Mackerel hit a bait and screamed line for a split second and that was it. It must have taken a whack at the bait and totally missed the hooks. Before you reel the bait back in to check it, leave it out for a few seconds. Many times Kings will come back for the rest of a bait, and then get the hooks in him/her this second go around. If a minute passes and you don’t get that second hit, then at that time you can reel it in and put a fresh bait out.
Wash King slime off immediately! If you bring a King Mackerel in and let it bleed and slime up the deck, it can be dangerous situation on a boat. Why? Because it’s slimey! I have known quite a few people slip, slide, and fall on King slime because they didn’t think it was “that bad”. Carry along a brush on your boat and wash the slime and blood off the deck immediately.
Take a First Aid Kit! Accidents happen. When they do, at least you’ll be prepared with a first aid kit. When King Mackerel fishing, you can get treble hooks embedded in yourself, accidentally gaff yourself, get bit or scraped by a King, etc. Bring out that first aid kit with cleaning supplies, bandages, and aspirin. Oh and don’t forget the camera! ha.
