Top 5 Lures & Rigs for King Mackerel
Disclaimer: I am not a “professional” King Mackerel angler, but I do have many years of experience and success catching smokers. The following list contains the 5 rigs / lures that I find to be the best to use.
Live Bait Rigs Consisting of a nose hook and two stinger treble hooks.
When slow trolling for Kings using live baits such as cigar minnows, threadfin, hardtails, you want your baits to swim as naturally as possible. Hooking your bait through the nose with the J Hook will keep that bait swimming as natural as possible.
When a King hits that bait, you want him / her hooked! The worst feeling is having a King strike your bait and miss the hooks. Kings are notorious for making “short strikes”. Having treble hooks as stingers will help hook those Kings. You’ll take one treble and stick it through the top base of the bait’s dorsal fin. The second treble hook can be left dangling free or placed near the base of bait’s rear caudal fin.
To learn exactly how to make a live bait rig, click here.
Pirate Plugs
Pirate Plugs are one of the greatest inventions for trolling dead baits. Pirate plugs were designed by a very experienced and knowledgable Captain and South Chatham Tackle store owner in North Carolina. His Pirate Plugs have a skirt, weighted head that gets baits down in the water, and it has a locking hook mechanism that stops bait spin. Put your dead / frozen bait onto the hook, push it into the weight / head and you’ll feel it lock in place. Troll these slow or fast and watch as your bait pulls perfectly through the water.
Pirate plugs are sold in different sizes, colors, rigged, unrigged, and can be used with several different bait species from minnows to ballyhoo to ribbonfish.
To learn more about pirate plugs or to purchase your own, click here.
Turbo Rattlers
Turbo Rattlers are small plastic capsules that have beads inside of them, and they have pieces on the sides that allow the rattlers to spin as they are trolled.
According to Turbo Rattler’s website, “All fish – freshwater or saltwater – feed on injured bait fish. When a bait fish is injured it goes into a state of distress. The Turbo Rattler mimics these distressed sounds and vibrations causing the predator’s natural instinct to take over and strike.”
Turbo Rattlers can be used with both live and dead baits. We use them with lots of success using dead baits and put down on downriggers.
Yozuri Deep Divers
These Deep Divers have a lip on the end that allow the lure to swim down deep while being trolled. The bigger the lure the faster they can be trolled and the deeper they will swim. Use the bigger Deep Divers in hopes of catching bigger Kings as well. (You know what they say – bigger baits equal bigger fish.)
When trolled, the Deep Divers also have a wiggling motion that attract fish. Our best results are the Deep Divers in hot pink. Most have bright holographic sides that are sure to catch a King’s eye. If you’re in dirtier water, I would definitely suggest trolling these!
Williamson Ribbonfish
These Ribbonfish lures look like real swimming ribbonfish. They are rigged with cable, three treble hooks along its body, and a weighted lip. They can be trolled anywhere from 2 to 6 knots, but we get better action trolled from 4 to 6 knots. They come in blue, black, and white, and they last a good while as long as you don’t leave them laying around together in the hot summer sun.
The Ribbonfish are great when trolled on flat lines or downriggers. Put them out in the water and watch their snake-like, slithering action.
