Trying to Reason With Kingfish Season (Part I)
With Kingfish season approaching its time to dust off those reels, put on some new line and oil up those drag systems. There is much debate over what water temperature draws the kings south during the fall from the northern Gulf of Mexico, but my guess is that it has more to do with the moon than the water temps.
The mid September full moon is upon us and I think that will be the one that turns the fish around and starts their journey south. That doesn’t mean that the fish will be here tomorrow, as they will slowly work their way down starting to chew in the Big Bend area within the next week or so.
A typical set up if you are just beginning to fish for kings is a conventional reel that can hold at least 300 yards of 17 or 20 pound test line. I use Shimano TLD 15’s and 20-pound monofilament line. The TLD has a lever drag system (rather than typical star drag) that allows me to quickly change drag tension and visually see what setting it is on. The only leader used is a wire stinger rig. You can buy stinger rigs or make them yourself with a little patience. Stinger rig size depends on the bait that you intend to use. If you are using big baits like a mackerel or ribbonfish then you may have as many as 3 seperate hooks on the rig. Smaller baits like threadfins, scaled sardines, or Spanish sardines only require one hook with one “trailer” treble hook. If you have any questions about baits, rigs, or when the fish will be here, drop me an email ( wes [Email address: wes #AT# breakinlines.com - replace #AT# with @ ]) or even better post a comment with a question below. I plan on talking more about trolling, chumming, and fighting the fish in two more articles as kingfish season becomes upon us.
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