Search
Close this search box.

Topwater Kingfish

Yellowtail kingfish would have to be one of the hardest-fighting fish along the east coast of Australia and they can be targeted in various ways, from as simple as slow trolling a live bait or throwing a soft plastic in the washes to my personal favourite – throwing stickbaits and poppers around for that epic topwater bite. In this article I am going to talk about some handy tips I use to make finding kingfish easier and the small things I do to fire them up to get those epic bites.

Finding the Kingdom

Kingfish are a very temperamental fish and working out their patterns can be a challenge. Knowing where kingfish like to hang out is critical as you can have 50km of coastline but they may only hold up in one area. Generally kingfish like to sit in areas with decent current flow that forms an eddy so they can wait for bait fish to come through for an easy feed. Therefore things to look for are points affected by current, submerged pinnacles or sea mounts, and any sort of shallow bommies that have enough potential for bait to hold up around them. When looking around these areas for kingfish you should spend most of your time using your sounder to look around on the current edges and eddies as the kings generally use them as a highway to cruise along all day looking for food. Water clarity isn’t a deal-breaker but the cleaner the water is generally better, especially when targeting them on topwater. 

Bigger kingfish tend to become more common around the end of spring leading into the summer months, as I believe they hang out along the continental shelf during the cooler months and when the East Australian Current pushes down they come into spawn around the shallow reefs so it is definitely my favourite time of the year to chase them. Kingfish like to feed on various types of bait fish such as common slimy mackerel, yellowtail and squid but they also chase larger fish such as bonito and salmon so don’t be afraid to use a big bait or lure for a big king. 

Catching Kings

Catching a kingfish on topwater is many anglers’ dream and it can be a grind before you even get one to look at your lure, so the biggest tip is to be patient. You might be casting in the right areas but they aren’t responding to a topwater lure. Either they aren’t feeding at that depth, or they may be focused on baitfish on the bottom so it is important to keep reading your sounder to see what the fish are doing. If I see kings down deep on a bait school I like to drop a knife jig down or throw a big plastic down on them and work that lure in the zone where they are feeding. Try different retrievals as some days they will eat it on the drop and some days you have to fire them up and crank your lure past them as quickly as you can to imitate a scared bait fish, which has a high success rate of getting them to strike. The key time I target them on topwater is the lead-up to a tide change, when they will rise off the bottom and start lurking around looking for a feed near the surface so you want to be in the right place at the right time (at tide change) to optimise your chances of catching that fish of a lifetime. Persistence with casting pays off so just keep casting and change your retrieve up every few casts; have five slow retrieves and then have five rapid retrieves, and repeat as you may get a king’s attention with a slow retrieve but they might just follow your lure to the boat. If you follow this with a cast back over them and work it with speed they will more than likely fire up and charge at your lure to strike – then you need to hang on.

Stealth

While targeting kings with surface lures I prefer to have my engine turned off and utilise my electric motor to spot-lock if I am marking fish and I will work that area hard. The less boat noise the better, especially if you’re trying to get them to come to the top. Some days they aren’t bothered, and they will literally eat anything that moves, but on the slower days you definitely want to make the most of your bite windows – and the little things count. So if you’re fishing a reef or a headland just stop up-current, switch your engine off and either drift or spot-lock if you have an electric motor. I would not suggest anchoring as kingfish are dirty fighters and if they see your anchor rope they will use that to wrap you up in and break you off – and possibly lose that fish of a lifetime.

Outfits

These aren’t a fish where you can just get by with average tackle – you need to have your rod, reel, line, leader, knots, lures and terminal tackle organised and ready for a dirty fighter, requiring heavy drag pressures in potentially shallow water over nasty reef. All my stickbaits and poppers have upgraded split rings and I switch the hooks that come in the box to high-quality hooks if they don’t already have them. I use hooks that are sharp and can withstand heavy drag pressures – you’ll pay more for strong and sharp trebles but it’s worth the investment. I generally like to run dual trebles on a stickbait but you can change it up depending on what works better for you. Some anglers prefer singles as the hooks stay in the fish better but I’ve found with trebles the hooks tend to set a lot easier on those gnarly topwater bites. Rods and reels are also very important when stickbaiting for kings as you want to have the right tool for the job – casting the wrong outfit for hours can quickly get tiring fast but if you are running the right set-up for the application it makes life a lot easier. My favourite for stickbaiting for kings is the Shimano Ocea Plugger 8ft 3in in PE6 medium/heavy matched to the legendary Stella 14000XH, which is a high-speed reel (important when working topwater lures). It’s a super-light outfit and you can punch those stickbaits a long way with ease making it nice to use on a long day of casting. It also has the backbone to keep those big kings off the bottom.  Leaders and knots are critical as well, and I run nothing lighter than 120lb leader for kings as if they do get you in the reef you can use that leader to your advantage to lock up and pull the fish off the bottom without losing your lure. The main knots I use are the FG knot for my leader and a chain knot to tie my stickbaits on – and that combination is almost unbreakable.

Lures

The stickbait and popper market is huge and there is almost a different lure for each and every different species in the ocean. I like to have a variety of different lures in my lure roll when targeting kings to cover all conditions for the day. The essentials to carry in your tackle bag for chasing topwater kings definitely include a few floating poppers – my favourite is the Shimano Bubble Dip 220F, which is a blooping-style popper as opposed to a chugging popper with a large cupped face. This style doesn’t push as much water and I find kingfish respond better. I’ll always have a mix of both floating and sinking stickbaits, and I like to use a floating stickbait when it is calm as you can rip the lure down and get it to swim with a natural and enticing action, but if the wind picks up I will switch to a sinking stickbait just to get it below the white caps to give it that more natural appeal to the fish. 

Release

As hardy as kingfish are they still need to be looked after, so if you’re going to release a king then be prepared and have your systems in place. If you have a deck wash in your boat lightly spray water over the fish to keep it wet and cool and try to get photos as soon as you can. When releasing, gently spear the fish headfirst back into the water for a strong release, but if you’re going to keep one for a feed make sure you bleed it straight away and get it into an Esky or chiller bag with plenty of ice to cool it down for the best eating quality – and enjoy your sashimi.

Leave a Replay

Latest Articles

Sign up for our Newsletter

Click edit button to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit

Join Our Newsletter

Exclusive Content And Early Access E-Mag And Videos.