Terry Lacoss

"Our game plan during the 2007 SKA National Kingfish Championship was to troll a current edge, located at the east side of an oil rig," Jacksonville's Richard Stone said. "While most boats were trying to catch a big kingfish trolling live blue runners on the surface, we were trolling artificial ribbonfish down deep, in water depths from 20 to 30 feet. While we were pre-fishing we had also determined that the much larger kings were holding just below the smaller kingfish".

"Clayton Kirby had told us previously about the big kings that he had found near a few of Alabama's oil rigs," Stone said. "However, we had to come up with a pattern to catch them which included trolling a current edge 20 feet deep with the artificial ribbonfish. We also trolled a large live blue runner right above each of the artificial baits, this helped attract the bigger kingfish out of the deeper water to attack the ribbonfish.

While many of the nearby kingfish boats were trolling close to the towers, The Woodsman/Tail Chaser's big Mercury powered Fountain trolled further away from the rigs out in the deep running current. Trolling their baits with the current and retrieving them when they determined they had trolled past the deep-water mackerel. At this point, team Woodstock would run back to the upper edge of the current, and troll back over the area holding the big fish with the current.

Team Woodstock went on to win the 2007 Southern Kingfish Association's National Championship title while targeting their tournament-winning kingfish down deep in the water column.

Fishing for kingfish just under the surface makes a lot of sense when you take into consideration that some days the surface of the ocean creates several unseen problems. For example when fishing on a windy day, a live bait fished just under the surface is a lot easier to see than a live bait fished right on top. This can happen for lots of reasons but it is usually because the surface of the ocean is often extremely confused by the wave and wind action frothing up the surface. The surface of the ocean in rough seas is often stained from rough sea conditions as well, where ocean waters down below are often much cleaner.

On the other hand, when the surface of the ocean is dead flat calm at high noon, the glare of the noonday sun is also very blinding to the deep-water king mackerel. Because of this a kingfish bait fished just under the surface at high noon is much easier for the smokers to see.

It took me quite a while to figure out why we were catching more kingfish deep around noon time than we were while trolling surface baits. I always thought it was the heat of the midday sun that drove big king mackerel deep. Now I believe it was the glare of the sun overhead. Add in the fact that the water temperature is much warmer on the surface, kingfish at high noon are more likely to be found down a little deeper.

I first stumbled onto this theory when fishing a tide line located just off from the coast of Georgia, during a past Golden Isles Kingfish Tournament. Kingfish weighing from 15 to 35 pounds were stacked up on the clean side of a tide line and feeding randomly on baitfish that collected in the watercolor change.

During early morning, we were catching kingfish just as the tide began to fall from the tide line, which became more defined as the morning grew older. Although we had two downriggers in service and slow trolling the largest menhaden from our livewell, all of our strikes came on our surface live baits.

Then just before high noon, the bite stopped. Like most impatient king mackerel fishermen, I began reeling in the live baits and checking them. While letting out a fresh, live bait, a massive kingfish struck the lively bait just under the surface. After chasing down the hooked fish and sticking it with our boat's long handled kingfish gaff, the big king was placed in a cooler packed with ice. In those early days of king mackerel fishing, fish bags were still on the designing tables.

We actually repeated the process and hooked a second, much larger kingfish using the same fishing technique. However both the surface and downrigger live baits went unscathed. Then I had an idea that quickly changed the way I king mackerel fished at high noon, particularly when the sun is shinning brightly on my kingfish waters.

I quickly retrieved a one-ounce egg sinker from a nearby tackle box and threaded the weight onto the 20-pound monofilament fishing line, just ahead of the swivel and wire leader.

Now when I free lined a live bait out into our kingfish spread and put the kingfish reel into gear, the small weight kept the live bait just under the surface. This small adjustment to our terminal tackle was an instant success and when both downrigger and surface live baits went unnoticed, high noon kingfish would attack the weighted live bait!

Seasoned king mackerel champion, Clayton Kirby, has also taken advantage of fishing live baits just under the surface to weigh-in tournament-winning king mackerel. Clayton would grab the fishing line from a T-top kingfish rod and begin to retrieve the fishing line in short jerks. Then the line was released, allowing several feet of line to drift back, but more importantly the live bait was allowed to swim a little deeper before the line came tight again.

Clayton Kirby is still very successful using this method of fishing big live baits just under the surface today, several years after creating this unique kingfish tactic. In fact, if you have the honor of fishing close to his speedy Mercury powered, Fountain kingfish boat, Clayton is continually working his fishing lines—constantly reeling in live baits, inspecting them and letting them free-line back into his live bait spread.

I can remember several kingfish seasons ago Clayton telling me, "The average king mackerel fishermen will let his live baits stay out there too long. They become weak and tired, resulting in a un-natural looking spinning bait on the surface. I am constantly reeling in my live baits to check them and in many cases, I will swap out a tired live bait for a fresh one. After hooking and free-lining the bait back into my kingfish spread, the first thing that I noticed is the fresh live bait is a lot more active. And in many cases these fresher live baits will try to swim deep, attracting giant kingfish strikes from just under the surface."

Another situation where kingfish were hitting just below the surface came during an SKA tournament held from the West Coast's famous Kingfish Pass.

Several kingfish boats were trolling some 20 miles offshore where pre-fishing had located tournament size king mackerel. There were several small rock ledges in the area, where tournament kingfish were literally stacked up!

However, there were only a few kingfish boats that were able to actually attract tournament grade king mackerel to their live blue runners and ribbonfish.

It was a very windy day, which caused a fast drift, making it almost impossible to troll into the current. The only way that you could present live baits properly, was to run up current and troll back with the current. This also proved to be next to impossible to get the baits down just under the surface even while traveling with the hard running current,. And in many cases, just as soon as you got your bait back in the spread, they would tire and begin to spin.

I soon began to pay close attention to the kingfish boats that were actually having the best luck and quickly noticed that they were drifting with the current, without power. This allowed their baits to swim naturally deeper under the surface, ultimately attracting strikes from the spooky king mackerel.

Finally, a deadly king mackerel fishing tactic that is still used by many fishermen today includes anchoring up current of a ledge, deep channel, or just off the beach where schools of big kingfish are busy searching for an easy meal. Here, free lining live baits off the stern of your anchored boat is an extremely deadly kingfish tactic. If your kingfish baits are allowed to swim without a lot of resistance they will stay fresh and lively much longer than a slow trolled live bait. Once several live baits are barbed and free lined back into your kingfish spread, both cut and ground chum can be slowly chummed into the water to entice the fish to your baits.

Remember that it is extremely important to cover a lot of water when slow trolling live baits. However it may be more important that your live baits are swimming just under the surface of the water. Particularly during high noon when there is an extremely bright sun, clear skies and particularly during rough sea conditions.