The Kings Highway

King Mackerels of "Days Gone By"

By Captain Gary A. Anderson

Trolleys posted on the end of the pier at Sharky's, are an indication of the onslaught to come in weeks, if not days ahead, of the annual Fall migration of Scomberomorous cavalla, the Kingfish or better known as King Mackerel. This biannual migration of the Kings occurs first in the springtime and then again in the fall before water temperatures become too cold for their comfort. Trolley rigs account for most of the Kings caught from on the boards of the pier. Stretching out more than seven hundred feet from the shoreline is the Venice City Pier, also known as “Sharky's on the Pier.” The pier is an excellent place to catch mackerels, sharks, Reds, Trout, Snook, Tarpon and just about anything that swims in the Gulf of Mexico. The reason so many fish are found near the pier and large sharks, to fourteen feet, along with monster King Mackerels up to fifty plus pounds is that the pier falls just short of a geological feature on the bottom, which causes a metalimnion to occur. A metalimnion represent a rapid decrease in temperature with depth; also called a thermo cline. Sharks performed a regular duel migration, spending the day below the thermo cline and rising towards the surface at night, as this is an adjustment to their internal body temperatures with the top of the water column being warmer than the bottom. This thermo cline acts as an air conditioner does to us; hence many sharks too are caught off the pier to which it is named. This small to medium drop-off or subtle cliff, follows the coastline for miles from offshore in to a point by the pier and extending itself northward to the reaches of Tampa Bay. As little as a two foot difference in depth to six feet or more turns this thermo cline into a flowing current or highway to which fish follow. During the spring and now that it is Fall, the biggest of the mackerels, the kingfish, will start their southern migration back to the tropics following the kings highway, as anglers wait in anticipation of catching a trolled King, over the subsurface terrain! READ MORE ON HOW TO CATCH THESE FISH ALONG THE KINGS HIGHWAY...