Wierd Kingfish activity, Lavendar bay

[James Clain]

So I was hoping this would be a report and It got very close but the most peculiar thing happened today.  The original plan was to kayak around Lavender bay near luna park with live yakkas so the first stop was the jetty before unloading the kayak to get yakkas before unpacking the kayak. Lavender bay has previously been a great spot for yakkas but no amount of burley was bringing them up. Normally you don't even need any burley there. So I was pretty sure  kings were around and about  but what happened next was quite wierd.

I fished with a metal and had 2 nice takes which I assume to be bonito until I threw a bit of burley into the shallow part of the boardwalk to try and see if there would finally be some yakkas. And yes there was some slow movement. "Wait these aren't yakkas that are kingfish" But not like normal. They were almost motionless almost floating like a clump of kelp. I estimate that there was around 40 to 50 with the biggest in the high 70cm range with the smallest around 50cm. These kingfish just hardly moved and were almost stationary just floating wiht the current. Remember this is on the boardwalk on the shoreline about 1 to 1.5 metre deep water. Some were even underneath the boardwalk so we were literally standing just on top of them. The kingfish counter shading made them almost impossible to spot at first due to their lack of movement. 

Literally action stations for everyone in the area but nothing put at these kingfish was working. I assume a small live yakka or squid just dangled in their face might have worked but nobody had any yakkas which confirmed my suspicion at the start that the kings were lurking. 

I am just stumped at how these kingfish were acting. I casted all the lures I had brought with me. The only thing that received minimal interest was a GT size roosta popper that I thought might imitate feeding sound and switch them on. 1 king slowly glided towards the popper still slower than walking speed but slowly glided away just as it turned... The school of kings kept drifting out until we could not see them.

I have experienced Kingfish many times acting uninterested and just swimming around lures and live-baits which is not unusual but this was a whole level above. This behaviour was super strange. A massive school of kingfish acting like a ball of yakkas just floating along with minimal movement with the current. In very shallow water. Have any raiders experienced this behaviour before and had success with the kingfish. I am sure live-bait could have been the key but when the kingfish beat you to your spot then live-bait is not an option. 

Comments or thoughts, to get some ideas about this. Have you seen this before? or is this also normal, haha.

Cheers!!

[Yowie]

34 minutes ago, James Clain said:

I assume a small live yakka or squid just dangled in their face might have worked

Doubt it. They were just being dumb arsed kingies not interested in food. Happens some times, then other times, a bit of bread burley brings them on the bite.

One day I watched a few kingies at Lilli Pilli bathes. They were swimming through the net, grabbing some whitebait hiding inside the bathes, then swimming out again into the deeper water. They showed interest in a lure, but if I hooked one, it would have swum back through the net, then end of story and lure.

[61 crusher]

Very unusual maybe they had there fill or was it right at the slack of a tide

[James Clain]

5 minutes ago, 61 crusher said:

Very unusual maybe they had there fill or was it right at the slack of a tide

It was running out. Which was contributing to most of their movement.

[James Clain]

9 minutes ago, Yowie said:

Doubt it. They were just being dumb arsed kingies not interested in food. Happens some times, then other times, a bit of bread burley brings them on the bite.

One day I watched a few kingies at Lilli Pilli bathes. They were swimming through the net, grabbing some whitebait hiding inside the bathes, then swimming out again into the deeper water. They showed interest in a lure, but if I hooked one, it would have swum back through the net, then end of story and lure.

There was lots of whitebait around. I was just under the impression that kingfish were like many other pelagic fish that have to keep moving relatively fast to keep their oxygen up.

[61 crusher]

4 minutes ago, James Clain said:

There was lots of whitebait around. I was just under the impression that kingfish were like many other pelagic fish that have to keep moving relatively fast to keep their oxygen up.

I think you’ll find the pelagics like tuna & mackerel need to keep moving, I have seen a salmon school almost at a stand still but never kingys

[James Clain]

2 hours ago, 61 crusher said:

I think you’ll find the pelagics like tuna & mackerel need to keep moving, I have seen a salmon school almost at a stand still but never kingys

purely just speculation but I am thinking they were trying to not give away their presence for the purpose of ambushing squid. After discussing what happend with a friend.

Edited April 25, 2020 by James Clain

[wazatherfisherman]

Hi James when I was in my teens we used to be able to fish Taronga Zoo wharf and I've seen them do that there before, just sit virtually motionless in the shadow of the wharf. We already had live Yakka's  when the Kings turned up and although we ended up virtually dropping the Yakka on the Kings heads, they didn't go for them. Has happened to me plenty of times in plenty of places. Happened out off Jibbon when we saw the massive school of Kings in the shadow of the turtle, then they just switched on.

They might have been after those tiny "Jelly Prawns" about a cm long, and the mere presence of Kings schooled up freaks out any schools of Yakka or other small possible prey. Sometimes, no matter what you do, they just aren't interested.

Especially lure fishing for them, they'll just switch off a particular colour that you're catching them on and all of a sudden switch onto another colour. A trick game fisherman Hank Newman showed me to use for trolling when fish are there, but not taking, is to tie a single strand of thick, coloured wool, only about an inch and a half long, to the bight of the hook, so it travels as the furthest-back part of your lure. Regardless of the lures colour. A few minutes of trolling and if no result, change the wool colour until you get a strike. The top game guys often have a stack of different wool colours on their boats

[big Neil]

4 hours ago, wazatherfisherman said:

Hi James when I was in my teens we used to be able to fish Taronga Zoo wharf and I've seen them do that there before, just sit virtually motionless in the shadow of the wharf. We already had live Yakka's  when the Kings turned up and although we ended up virtually dropping the Yakka on the Kings heads, they didn't go for them. Has happened to me plenty of times in plenty of places. Happened out off Jibbon when we saw the massive school of Kings in the shadow of the turtle, then they just switched on.

They might have been after those tiny "Jelly Prawns" about a cm long, and the mere presence of Kings schooled up freaks out any schools of Yakka or other small possible prey. Sometimes, no matter what you do, they just aren't interested.

Especially lure fishing for them, they'll just switch off a particular colour that you're catching them on and all of a sudden switch onto another colour. A trick game fisherman Hank Newman showed me to use for trolling when fish are there, but not taking, is to tie a single strand of thick, coloured wool, only about an inch and a half long, to the bight of the hook, so it travels as the furthest-back part of your lure. Regardless of the lures colour. A few minutes of trolling and if no result, change the wool colour until you get a strike. The top game guys often have a stack of different wool colours on their boats

Very interesting Waza. I've always been very interested in the debate about the effect of colour in lures affecting the take. Probably more applicable to clarity in saltwater than the murkier freshwater. If you have any more experiences regarding colour and the impact on the bite, I would be interested to hear them. Cheers, bn

[Yowie]

11 hours ago, 61 crusher said:

I have seen a salmon school almost at a stand still 

Have seen that a few times in Port Hacking, the salmon just sitting near the bottom.