Hers my take guys, I’m no kingfish expert but I’ve done a couple of years chasing them off the rocks and wharfs, and what I personaly found is if they are snooping around your bait and swimming away, there’s something wrong with it, either your hook is to heavy and it’s sinking to fast OR they can see the line, so if you lighten the hook gauge or lighten the tracer/leader it charges the outcome to a TAKE, but then comes the issue of landing it’
Good luck and I hope this helps’