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Power Drifting For Kingfish
Terry Lacoss
The pressure is on to locate big kingfish, before a big money SKA event. The captain’s decision making can sink your team’s success, or make them rich too.
On almost every trip, a kingfish is hooked up while trolling and when the boat's power is put into neutral, a drifting bait is nailed by a nearby fish. After the hooked kingfish are landed, the skipper continues to troll, never paying much thought to why the much larger kingfish hit the drifting bait.
However deep sea fishermen with a lot of savvy have used this drifting technique to catch kingfish that are often suspended, or just simply will not chase down a trolled bait or lure. Once they have determined where the kingfish are holding over the bottom structure, they will simply use their boat's power to get up current, or up wind of the feeding kingfish. Once the boat is positioned up current, the boat's power is used to bump in and out of gear, which creates a power drift.
As the boat drifts over the hole, drifting baits are allowed to sink or swim slowly down into to the hole. As the boat's power is put back into gear, the baits are once again pulled up through the water column, Then when the boats power is once again put out of gear, the kingfish baits begin their natural drift downward. Normally, this is when nearby kingfish are lured into striking the falling baits.
However power drifting baits, is not always as productive as other types of Wing mackerel fishing. It also seems that in some areas of the southeast and Gulf Coastal waters, power drifting is more popular than other styles of king mackerel fishing.
In all cases of king mackerel fishing, power drifting can be more productive when fishing in water depths of fifty feet or greater. This makes plenty of fish sense, since deeper depths may hold kingfish at a wide variety of water depths.
There are a wide variety of other variables which makes power drifting successful. Included are wind direction and speed, current direction and speed, bottom structure, location of bait fish schools in the water column and the location of nearby bottom structures.
I can remember a past fishing trip off of Tampa, Florida, which proved to be ideal conditions for power drifting.
Fishing in the Southern Kingfish Association's National Championship, several of the tournament boats were fishing a large rock ledge. The rock ledge rose up to 60-70 feet on the top and then dropped off to 100-120 feet on the deep side. However the key here was a strong wind and current, both were running in the same direction, from the shallow side of the ledge, to the deep side of the ledge.
Kingfish boats that were slow trolling live baits, would simply zip over the structure when slow trolling with the wind and current on their stern. Once they passed over the ledge, they soon found themselves trolling away from the structure and more importantly, tournament winning kingfish, at a fast rate of speed.
After turning the bow of their boat around and heading back to the rock ledge, they soon found out that progress was very slow. Actually the strong wind and current was holding them off from the ledge and slow trolling had been slowed down to a very slow crawl! So two problems had surfaced, the boats were trolling too fast down wind and too slow against the wind.
I happened to be one of those boats! However we did see two tournament boats, which were continually hooking up to kingfish. All of their hookups were coming as they seemed to be power drifting over the rock ledge, or into the deep drop off on the deep side of the rock pile. A closer look, proved that the two boats were using their boat's power to position their drift and to keep their fishing lines straight at the same time.
Once the boats had drifted through the hole, they simply throttled up their boat's power and ran up wind and current of the hole. Once again, they would begin to power drift over the hole. The two skilled boats were virtually the only two boats that were catching these deep water kings, until the secret became obvious by nearby fishing boats. Including our own!
Another good example of productive power drifting came when fishing a very defined tide line. The tide was coming in at northeast Florida's, Nassau Sound and created a perfect tide line. During the past few fishing days, we had hooked up with inlet kingfish during the first few hours of the in-coming tide
However tide line fishing can be often difficult when trying to establish where the kingfish are holding along the tide line. Our game plan was to ambush tide line kings, as the tide line passed over a deep slough, which had been created by a recent beach renourishment project. There, a natural home for both nearby bait fish and game fish by the dredging project. Here the water depth dropped from eighteen to thirty five feet.
When the tide line began to pass over the deep slough, we started to discard chum at the edge of the tide line. At the same time, we trolled with our baits right up to the edge of the deep slough and then put the boats power into neutral. We then began to drift quietly through the deep slough and at the same time, keeping our live baits, right on the edge of the tide line and in the chum slick that we had created. Bumping the boats power in and out of gear allowed us to keep our baits right on the edge of the tide line and in the slick as well.
Seconds later, Curt Sanders grabbed a deeply bent rod and worked his way to the open bow of our boat. Actually it appeared as though he had hooked up to a small shark or Spanish mackerel, as the fish enjoyed staying tight alongside of our fishing boat and did not blast off on a typical run.
With this in mind, I told everyone to leave all the rest of the kingfish baits in the water. We would have this fish landed and released in a few seconds, without any danger to the rest of our gear.
'Terry, I think you better come up here with the gaff, this small fish has grown into a big king," instructed Curt!
I secured the gaff and hurried to the front of the boat. Curt was right! A twenty five pound kingfish was just laying in the water and right alongside of our fishing boat. I reached over with the gaff and secured Curt's catch.
I really don't think that kingfish ever thought she was hooked! Instead, I think she thought that she was still feeding along the tide line and chum slick!
Once we had passed through the deep slough, we would simply turn the boat around and slow troll back to the slough. Upon our arrival, we once again discard chum into the deep slough and waited for a bite, while making our power drift.
Power drifting can be effective during a wide variety of kingfish situations, particularly when fishing deep holes, or when there is a strong current or wind. More importantly, by taking the boat's power in and out of gear, this causes your baits to drift down, or to rise to the surface. At the same time, this allows the king mackerel fisherman to fish all of the water column, from top to bottom.
A wide variety of kingfish baits all work well, while power drifting, including both dead and live baits. When live bait fishing, I prefer to barb a one ounce, lead head jig, right through the bottom of the mouth and out the top of the head. Obviously the one ounce jig helps the live bait drift down, when fishing deep holes. Large dead baits also work well, particularly cigar minnows.
In all cases, I would also recommend taking the stinger hook and barbing it in the side or back of the kingfish bait. This insures a better hook up as the bait drifts downward. If the stinger hook is not embedded into the bait fish, it will often swing away from the bait, promoting a poor hook up.
I would also recommend power drifting with 20-25 pound tackle. Heavier lines are not likely to become tangled as lighter pound test lines, particularly when allowed to drift downward. Another factor includes multiple hook ups. Heavier lines will have a better chance of holding on to fast running kingfish when nearby fishing lines and down rigger cables come in contact. This is certain to happen, particularly when a heavy wind or current is running.
If down riggers are to be used, I would also recommend power drifting for a short period of time, from 15-30 seconds. I would also recommend using a shorter set back distance with your down rigger baits, from 10-20 feet.
Rod holders can also be installed at the bow of your boat, which will allow the mackerel fisherman to fish a bow line when applicable In all cases, power drifting can be very productive while using your same spread of lines. Including two t-top rods, two downrigger rods and one shotgun rod.
Obviously, power drifting is not always the best fishing tactic for hooking up to fast running kingfish. But when the conditions are right, you just can't beat a good power drift!
