Lure Them In

Rigged natural baits and live baits are highly effective for catching kingfish, but bait supplies aren't always available. Then there are the trips meant to target other species that get sidetracked by skyrocketing kings in the vicinity. That's when a kingfish strike is as far off as your tackle box.

Kings aren't picky about their food sources, but they do prefer to eat what's most commonly available in a given area. For most of Florida, that means mullet or herring.

Just about any lure that looks like natural kingfish fodder will catch these fish, but the artificials that consistently fool kings can be lumped into three categories: feathers, spoons and deep-diving plugs.

Probably the most productive kingfish lure is a small, unweighted blue-and-white or red-and-white feather, or kingfish "bug" as the commercial hook-and-line fishermen call them. Kingfish bugs are hard to find and even harder to fish without the right gear, but they're so productive that the commercial sector uses them exclusively when live bait is not available. Bugging for kingfish requires a downrigger or planer to get the feather into the strike zone, and the line has to be rigged loosely through the clips so that it can be constantly jigged or twitched.

For recreational anglers, it's hard to beat a silver spoon such as the ever-popular No. 3 1/2 Huntington Drone. Spoons have a tendency to flutter and flash, much like a swimming threadfin or scaled sardine. Most anglers fish their spoons below the surface on downriggers, planers or cigar weights. Getting the spoon 10 to 20 feet below the surface will throw flash throughout the entire water column and attract the school kings that like to patrol close to the reefs.

Color counts with spoons, and it seems like silver, pearl and pink work on the brightest days, while gold, orange and red perform best under overcast low-light conditions. Try to match spoon size to the baits the kings are presently after, going smaller to mimic pilchards and larger to look like a menhaden, for example.

Kingfish have a love-hate relationship with swimming lures, but it's the ones that can go deep over the reefs and rocks that seem to consistently catch fish. Deep-diving plugs have earned more than their share of kingfish bites; sometimes they seem to catch the largest fish. Mark Harding of Sebastian once won a Ducks Unlimited Tournament with a 56-pound king he caught on a Rapala Magnum plug. Harding ran out of ballyhoo early in the day when his son accidentally emptied a bucket of thawing baits overboard. Instead of heading in, he found two deep-diving lures in his tackle box and fished the two-bait spread all the way to a $5,000 check.

Just to show how productive deep-diving plugs can be, the late Stan Blum of Fort Pierce once bet me a dollar he would catch a kingfish each time he trolled up and down the reef using only these lures. Blum favored the Magnum Rapalas, Rebel Jawbreakers and 112MR series MirrOlures. The bet got to $16 at double-or-nothing before we went over the reef without catching a kingfish.

Blue-and-silver or any of the mackerel colors are productive in clean, green wa-ter, while black-and-silver or red-and-white seem to work best along a discolored tide line. Firetiger is another popular color that has caught its share of nice kings, particularly when fished deep over reefs.

Don't underestimate the allure of a jig or jig-and-bait combination. Deep-jigging over natural and artificial reefs is one of the best ways to catch school kings, and a big jig worked along an edge or color change will search the entire water column for a hungry smoker. Add a pair of 7/0 hooks and a ballyhoo or sardine, and you've got an offering that not only looks like the natural product, but swims into the current and leaves a scent trail.

White or blue-and-white seem to be the most productive kingfish colors, but just about any color combination has caught these fish. Start with 1/2-ounce jig, and work your way to the heavier lures depending on the current. Jig shapes vary, and determine the action of the lure. A bullethead jig will rise and drop through the water column head-first, while a butterbean jig will flutter side-to-side toward the bottom.