One of the things you often hear anglers talk about is what fish is the toughest pound for pound. To really appreciate this concept, think of a species then imagine it weighed the same as a reasonable size marlin. What sort of sport fish would you end up with? For sheer speed, a 150kg yellow fin tuna would be awesome, for back breaking power the same sized GT would be a real unit. However, think about what a 150kg kingfish would be like; blistering speed and power with all the dirty tricks of a seasoned street fighter. Perhaps this is why big kings are referred to as hoodlums or the poor man’s game fish. Targeting big kings is incredibly addictive and there would be few angling pursuits that compare going toe to toe with a big hoodlum. I suppose when you think of big kings one automatically thinks of South Australia. Port Augusta all the way around to Port Lincoln has some of the most fertile pastures for big kingfish in the country. Fortunately for east coast anglers in search of big king fish, all is not lost. Jervis Bay, only 2 hours south of Sydney is home to some of the east coast’s biggest kings and at times, in numbers that even over-shadow some of South Australia’s kingie hot spots.

TECHNIQUES AND TACTICS

Personally, I consider myself to be somewhat of an old school angler. Certainly I like playing with the new gadgetry of the tackle revolution that’s happened over the last few years, but fishing for big kings at Jervis Bay (or in most areas for that matter) is all about live baits, heavy leader and big strong hooks. Forget jigging, the water is too shallow where the kings are found in numbers. As for soft plastics, generally a big king won’t even look at one. Big kings eat live baits, so as an angler, stick to the menu they like. Live baits can be collected near to where the kings inhabit, which I suppose makes sense as they wouldn’t live too far from their food source. Around the Jervis Bay area there are big squid on inshore reefs, slimy mackerel, yakkas and at times frigate tuna available. As always when collecting live bait, it’s a matter of searching all the likely spots, catching what you need and keeping them in tip top condition in a live bait tank until they’re needed. By far the best method of live baiting for kings at JB is to troll them. Sitting at anchor in the same spot doesn’t do the trick in this area. The livies must be pulled past the kings for best results. There are two options for trolling live baits; firstly along the surface, which does work, but a far more effective method is to use a down rigger to get the bait down somewhere towards the bottom. At Jervis Bay, we’ve found the kings to be in their largest numbers anywhere from 5 to 15 meters from the bottom. If you can place a live bait directly in the strike zone, literally right in front of the noses of the king fish, hook up rates will sky-rocket. Sometimes kings will swim that extra distance to get to a live bait on the surface, but often they won’t. However, stick a struggling live bait right in front of them way down the water column and even for the wiliest old hoodlum it’s often a temptation to great to resist.

GEAR AND TACKLE

This is where you either make it or break it when tackling big kings. First and foremost quality fishing gear is a must. Don’t, whatever you do, insult these big fish with cheap gear; they’ll make you pay in spades. You need a reel capable of dispensing 150 meters of line under 8kg+ of drag if you want any chance of landing a big JB king. Under these sorts of stresses, cheap gear, particularly reels, will probably break or seize if they don’t catch on fire first. You’re not going to need a number of outfits either, just one. When you get a hook up you’ll understand why fishing multiple rods, even with a couple of experienced anglers on board, is a recipe for disaster. Two or more hook ups at a time with big kings fishing in this manner and you can just about bet your life you’ll lose them both. There are a number of top quality outfits on the market suited to this style of fishing, but it’d be hard to go past the Saltiga rods and reels. As I mentioned, you need gear that can run high drag pressure and the Saltiga gear does it with ease. The other option is look at 15kg and above game outfits, which, while not as exciting to use, certainly get the job done when loaded with heavy braid. Speaking of braid, it’s the number one choice when it comes to main line selection. The reason for this is two fold. Firstly, the smaller diameter of braid compared to monofilament means you can use a heavier line class for the same line capacity on the reel. Generally, a line capacity in the order of 250-300 meters is more than adequate. More important than capacity, is the breaking strain of the line. While you can get away with 40-50lb braid, it is a little on the light side, especially when push comes to shove and you’re trying to turn the head of a 30kg king away from the reef. The best bet is 80lb. It allows a stack of drag to be run, without fear of it breaking and gives that extra confidence to go in ‘hard’ on a fish when it’s necessary. Shock leader is next and again, as with the braid, it needs to be fairly heavy duty. The best choice is 60-80lb leader material that has a high abrasive resistance. The leader length needs to be a little longer than normal at around 5 meters. If a king manages to get himself back near some structure, you’re going to want a bit of distance between him and the low abrasive resistance of the braided main line. Also, as the name suggests, the shock leader needs to be able to compensate for the lack of stretch afforded by the braid. With big kings there has to be at least some give in the line, particularly when he gets near the boat. Finally, let’s look at terminals. This is an area where short cuts have to be avoided. Big hoodlums make short work of breaking cheap leader and swivels and can easily straighten anything other than the highest quality hooks. Baring all this in mind we found the best terminal set up to be 30kg ball-bearing swivel attached to the shock leader with a 1 meter length of 80lb fluorocarbon then running from the swivel down to a Black Magic GZ 6/0 to 8/0 live baiting hook. These hooks are a brilliant design; always find their mark right in the side of the fish’s mouth and because of their thick gauge and high carbon content they are virtually incapable of straightening.

LOCATING JB HOODLUMS

One big plus of fishing for kings at JB is that there isn’t a heap of off shore travel involved. In fact most of the fishing is done a few hundred meters from shore along the cliffs that extend around Jervis Bay and the surrounding area. A word of caution though, there are new marine parks in effect in and around Jervis Bay, some are for land based fishing only and some are for no fishing at all. Rather than listing all the vagaries of where you can and can’t fish, check out www.nswmarineparks.org.au for exact information regarding these ‘no fish’ zones. Once you’ve established where you can and can’t fish, it’s time to get down to the business of locating the kings. This is where a good quality sounder is of huge value. Perhaps rather than trolling live baits around blind, it’s often a better idea to sound around along the reef areas in close to shore looking for either schools of bait fish or large arches, which will most likely be kings. It can take a few days to get an area worked out, but eventually you’ll get a feel for where the kings either are or should be. If you use the sounder in tandem with a GPS chart plotter, you can do a few dummy runs over likely looking areas and establish a route that doesn’t have a bottom that undulates too much. Remember, you can lose a downrigger bomb in a micro second if it gets snagged, so either avoid or at least be aware of an area that dramatically changes depth. It betroths the angler trolling live baits on a down rigger in an area like Jervis Bay to do a little recon and planning first. Remember; less haste less waste.

DEALING WITH THE TERRAIN

Perhaps the greatest enemy of any angler targeting big kings is the terrain these fish inhabit. One of the first expressions I remember my fishing partner Neil ever used in relation to king fish was ‘the fight with a big king fish is won or lost in the first 5 minutes’. It’s in this initial post hook up period when the king will be at his liveliest and do everything possible to get your line to run across any object capable of breaking it. If the angler can withstand this opening salvo then the chances of winning the ensuing battle greatly improve. Unfortunately, king fish generally live and feed around under water structure. This makes sense because this is where food in the form of bait fish, squid and the like are going to be in their largest numbers.  So how does one deal with a king going full steam and within a few meters of the reef below? Well, basically you need to even up the odds a bit by getting the fish out of the danger zone and into an area that has little, if any, structure as quickly as possible. At Jervis Bay the reef extends out from the cliffs a few hundred meters then the sea floor pretty much becomes made up of exclusively sand. The best method we found for getting kings away from the reef was trying to ‘plane’ them away from the reef and into the relative safety of the sandy sea floor just beyond it. To plane a fish effectively you need to have great confidence in your gear, drag setting and most of all your technique. Basically, what you do is once the down rigger clip has released and you’ve established a solid hook up, you need to steer the boat away from the reef area as quickly as you can while having the drag set on the reel at as close to the maximum setting allowable by the reel and more importantly the line. This is normally about one-third of the line’s breaking strain. The net effect is that you and the fish will probably be travelling in different directions at a rate of knots, but because of this the fish will be under constant pressure, somewhere in the order of 8-12kg, and eventually (fingers crossed) the king is forced to yield to this on-going pressure and ends up following the boat away from the reef and towards the area where the sea floor is structureless. Now, that’s how it works in theory and if any single piece of your gear isn’t up to the task, planing a fish of this size will definitely bring you undone. Once you can confirm via the sounder that you are away from structure on the sea floor, it’s time to dig your heels in and play the fish out. As was mentioned earlier, the battle is normally won or lost in the first 5 minutes, so once you have the king in an area without structure you’ll have half the battle won.

NO SHORT CUTS TO SUCCESS

Targeting big kings in any area requires planning, absolute attention to detail and total faith in your gear and technique. There are no short cuts in this business. Expect bust offs and to go through a heap of terminal tackle. It’s a steep learning curve when you start fishing for XL king fish, but in the end there’s nothing that compares to the sight of a big hoodlum boat side ready to be landed.