Winter kings in the harbour

[Pickles]

Steve - one of my buddies was keen to catch a Kingie, having never got one before. HE does a bit of beach fishing and gets salmon and tailor, but never hooked a king. Phil has been out quite a bit with me, so knew what to expect.

i was pretty confident we’d get at least1/2 dozen (which was what we ended up landing, as well as Salmon) if the water temp was around the magic 18degrees. (My experience is the smaller kings under 80 cm seem to either shut down or go offshore below this).

We had no trouble getting squid -  the big winter green eyes are showing up and we got one Kracken around 60cm (didn’t stretch the tentacles out or would have been over 70), but small yakkas were hard to locate. We didn’t waste time filling up the bait tank with squid as they have been so easy to get.

The squid were off The southern headland which was protected as a strongish 15-20k ssw on Wednesday, hence I didn’t go outside to Long reef, 12 mile which was the plan. The rough water seems to appeal to squid which seem to like this “troubled water”, wasn’t fun and the wind was pushing towards the rocks - Praise God for Minn Kota’s.

 

The kings were all caught down rigging live squid. The water temp was 14 degrees on outgoing tide and 18 on in coming and they were pretty sluggish. I had to go lighter as the sounder showed lots underneath us but they wouldn’t look as 80lb or 50lb leaders and ones we caught and landed were on 20 and 30lb, but we did loose two, but toss up at this time of year - do you go light and loose them or heavy and get no hits?

If you happen upon a big and hungry unit, then even 80lb is too light. I keep a rod ready with 60lb braid and 130lb Fluoro, but it’s a 1:10 chance. No kings were caught on the Yakkas, but there were salmon and tailor that took the Yakkas and trevally on strips of yellowtail.

By lunchtime the sun was out, rain gear off and the harbour was “bootiful”

We are indeed blessed to have such a magnificent place with such a healthy marine environment. 

Keep our harbour clean raiders and pick up any discarded rubbish, plastic bags and waste line - we’ll all benefit if you do.

[kingie chaser]

A nice productive day out by the sound of it...……………...well done 

[masterfisho7]

Nice report and well done on the kings

[RedSeaFisho]

Sounds like an amazing day, well done!

[Welster]

Squid and kings doesn’t get much better than that.   Nice report

[Rebel]

Great report and photos.

[The Rev]

Good on you Pickles 

[61 crusher]

Great informative report, photos & a cracker of squid, I’ve been getting a few around that size (30cm hood) off my local rocks lately & are good on the tooth at that size. I also like the comment at the end & always take my fair share of rubbish left by other inconsiderate “A”holes on the rocks & thank non fisho locals who do the same