Mate Slinky is right on the money...
You dont need Live squid to catch a kingy, but if you wanna catch multiple kingys per trip, Nearly every trip and not just underize rats you gotta learn how to catch squid and not look for a easier option.
If you chat to all the regurlar kingy catchers on this site, people like Robbielites, Va911, Namesay they all use live squid and live squid only......
A few people over the years have asked me about how to catch kings and i respond the same to all of them, Catching kings isnt hard, compared to other species they are simple to catch, but with kings bait is very important, and in our harbour squid is by far the gun bait, so i tell people to master catching squid, because if you master that, you will master kingy catching.