SMOKE SHOW

HOOKING AND LANDING BIG KINGS REQUIRES TOP-NOTCH TACKLE AND TECHNIQUE

- DAVID A. BROWN 

WE'VE ALL SEEN IT.

A guy pulling dead cigar minnows or drifting a couple of rigged mullet on single-nose hooks crosses paths with a giant kingfish. It happens, but does it happen dependably? Though these somewhat accidental hookups occur from time to time, you have to bring your A-game if you really want to score. Serious kingfish competitors know that consistency is not found, it's built through mindful preparation and prudent game planning. And integral to this strategy is the right gear in the right place.

"You have to use the best gear you can. Because if you have a tournamentwinning kingfish on and a reel fails, you might as well not be out there," says kingfish pro Ron Mitchell of Jupiter, Florida.

A decorated tournament pro and Southern Kingfish Association Hall of Famer, Mitchell knows that fooling giant "smoker" kings means overcoming a legendary wariness born of experience, enhanced by keen eyesight, and complicated by a slashing style that makes them really good at taking what they want.

A soup-to-nuts treatise would keep us here all day, so let's outline the key elements and why you need them.

Keep Them Kickin'

Live bait is the fuel that runs the serious kingfish engine. Whether it's mullet, menhaden (pogies or bunker), scaled sardines (whitebait or pilchards), threadfin herring (greenbacks), round scad (cigar minnows), bigeye scad (goggle-eyes), redtail scad (speedos) or blue runners (hardtails), the livelier the better.

Capt. Kevin Farner, who runs out of St. Petersburg, Florida, throws a cast net for mullet or menhaden. But the more delicate baits can be susceptible to bruising from the mesh and are best collected on sabiki rigs. Larger blue runners or bluefish will bite off or break most sabikis, so Farner suggests using Gotcha plugs, spoons or jigs to catch them, a common tactic around northern Gulf drilling rigs.