Thread: Unbelievable kingfish bite!

I saw some good kingfish bites and some big smokers in my early training days for mackerel fishing on the GSP. I've never experienced anything like this before! Anybody else seen a bite like this, even close? We literally hooked kings for hours!

This is great and I really don't hate you right now.

Spring of 2012 gulf shores pier 190+ kings, not to mention reds & Jack's all day long

In the early 70s we fished a day out of Destin when almost every boat in the Destin fleet was in about 40-80 acres just SW of the pass. We caught and kept 60 kings (six on the boat 3 guys and wives, 2 of whom were not very proficient at fishing to say the least) in a "4 hour" (dock to dock) trip. A good portion of the kings we caught came on big Clark spoons hung off the back cleat on nylon cord. The deckhand just bailed them into the box - no rod.

Every boat was "loading the boat". Of course, I wouldn't keep that many today, but that was "back in the day".

Originally Posted by ironman172

Spring of 2012 gulf shores pier 190+ kings, not to mention reds & Jack's all day long

I missed that one, but what I wouldn’t give to see one day like that before I’m too old to enjoy it.

Originally Posted by Rich1

I missed that one, but what I wouldn’t give to see one day like that before I’m too old to enjoy it.

Pretty sure it happened again the next weekend- reports were 150 (?) I believe. All I know is I caught 2 that day, whenever it was.

Yeah I’ve seen lots of days like that-right there where the end of the new pier is Slow trolling live LYs in my leaky skiff! # r can tell you ! I was there first guys

Sorry for the slow response to this thread. It seems like every so often a huge concentration of kingfish shows up in one area. I've also heard from some old timers that the kingfish used to be more common like that. What happened? People over fished them?