Kings of the Beach!
Many people talk about “fishing the beach”, when they talk about angling for king mackerel in Florida. They are not talking about surf fishing, but rather the methods they use fishing from their boats until now with the introduction of a new type of kite, used to propel the bait from the beach to the bite or in the use of a Trollied rig from a pier or jetty. Therefore, whether angling for Kings of the beach in a vessel or from the shore, anybody can catch king mackerel with just a little blow and the right rig.
Kings are migratory, and even when they move into an area, they seldom hold in one location always on the move and always looking for a bite. They are pelagic, and must follow their food. Having no bladder, they must remain in a swimming state or they will perish. Feeding on Blue Runners to Cigar minnows, Kings will hit or chase most any small species when on the hunt. Hardware to live baits work best but dead Spanish, filleted with tail in tack work extremely well on a fast current, under a trolley or kite, on a windy day.
When I first heard the term, “fishing on the beach” for Kings, I pictured boats just beyond the breakers slow trolling back to fro between the bars. This certainly is done, and many fish are caught this way, however, fishing the beach can mean something far different from that. Trolleys, boats, balloons and kites all have one thing in common; they produce a catch called kings and occasionally sharks to tarpon too.
If angling from a boat start on the beach just behind the breakers, early in the morning, looking for schools of menhaden or greenies on the break to boil. A couple of throws from a net usually will produce enough bait to fish all day.
With a live well full of live minnows to runners, you off and ready for action. Two baits go halfway to the bottom on port and starboard downriggers, and two baits are free lined on the surface off the stern. A slow troll, around two mph or a slow stroll if you could walk on the water, insures that the baits actually swim, and are not dragged.
Zigzagging your way down the beach with each maneuver a little further out than the last and one will eventually be as far as one to two miles off the beach. The term “fishing the beach” comes from the fact that you start on the beach but never lose sight of the beach.
One to two miles off the beach in Venice, Florida usually means water depths in the twenty to forty depth ranges, depending if you are moving north and a shallower foot range in a southern direction with exceptions that do occur. Live bottom is patchy across the Swiss cheese bottom, and without a good group of good numbers, the zigzagging works to cover as much bottom as possible. If you are on the need of local wrecks to reefs, Inshore Florida is coming out with an eBook soon with over three hundred groups of numbers for Loran and GPS. You could go online and find them free or just pay the buck, a dollar, and download it to your favorite spot. Structure always holds fish and if by chance you catch or spot a barracuda on the troll, chances are you found some type of structure; mark it down or throw over a marker to come back too for further investigation. Cuda’s like kings for they pick up the scraps left behind these messy feeders. Remembering the kings are on the fly in a constant move, as the Cuda or shark underneath has the time to enjoy scrapes left over. Fishing the beach from a boat is a great way to spend a day on the water a slow troll for fast fish!
Balloons to Kites produce big kings too, sometimes bigger than caught in boats due to the fact your baits can go where a slow troll boat cannot! Sandbars to shallow water (on the skinny side) reefs do wonders to a prop, much less the hull.
Free lining out a bait balloon, those 24-inch monsters clipped on with a clothespin, over a stainless steel 38-pound test wire and an Owner 7/0 bait hook with attached stinger to a Blue runner will surely entice but the biggest of fish. The only drawbacks on the balloon idea are that they are not eco-friendly to the environment and the wind or current must be moving offshore or away from the beach. The only other way to “balloon” out is off the end of a pier or jetty. You will have the advantage to distance off the beach here but are still at the whims to wind, current and boats which might cut you off as they speed by not even noticing anything other than the avoidance of the marker ahead; your balloon. Speaking of piers to jetties, angling for kings usually comes in the form of a trolley. Upon first encounters of the Kings, word spreads like a wildfire down the grapevine to bring on the anglers in search of Kings. Armed with anchor weights, attached to ten foot plus rods and three-inch wide PVC pipes to lash to the rails, the daily routine starts as the early morning sunrises and the pitching out of the trolleys begins. The anchor weights are but small pieces of cut rebar or four plus ounce lead weights with ten-inch pieces of coat hangers attached with electrical tape. The wire, bent out from the weight to form a type of umbrella, is attached to the anchor line (fishing line) of the anchor rod (a ten foot or more fishing pole) and casting out as far as possible will secure itself to the bottom; hence anchor weight. Upon securing the anchor to the bottom, the PVC piping tied to a pier railing or post directly in proportion to the vicinity of the anchor becomes the focal point of all the action. The anchor rod, placed in the PVC pipe, gives additional height to the trolley (fishing line going out to the anchor weight). A second fishing rod, used in actually catching the King mackerel, rigged with at least three foot of stainless steel single strand wire in the forty to sixty-five pound test range and attached Owner bait hooks with a stinger. The stinger is usually a single treble hook of at least a number four. This King rigging placed onto the trolley line via a trolley or trolling release clip, is now ready for bait placement. With the trolleys in place, anglers go about the ritual of catching the trolley baits. Trolley baits, caught with regular spinning rods throwing spoons, jigs, straws or sabiki’s, consist of legal Bluefish or Spanish, Bluerunners, Ladyfish and large Thread Herring. Placing the bait hook just under the dorsal fin of the batfishes and either allowing the stinger to swing free or hooked just under the anal fin, the bait is ready for presentation to its prey. Free spooling out the baits, on twenty to thirty pound test line, with stand up gear, the bait rods reel positioned next to or on the railing with a Down-East rod holder in gear, clicker on, with a light set on the drag, the wait is on. When the bite occurs, the King moving at lightning speeds will dump a couple of hundred yards of line off the reel in seconds. The clicker screams and “FISH ON!”
SO, let us go fly a kite!
On the beach, people are swimming, sunning, building magnificent sand castles, fishing, and flying kites. Ever noticed that person hauling out past the bars and breakers at break neck speeds while kite boarding? Well, on that same principal, the kite skips out your bait as far as you have line and can catch fish on the skip 9trolling) or after you quick release your bait to your chosen spot for the bite. ‘Caught in Flight Kites’ are specifically manufactured for the beach and pier to jetty anglers looking to hook it up where they have yet to have been before, unless they own a boat. You can save on shipping from Australia if ordered from us or, if you prefer and do not mind the extra charges, buy direct from them Ericka or Steve at
When finished angling for the kings on the beach and watching one of our breath taking southwest Florida sunsets take the time come evening to walk to elegant retail shops and visit Venice, Florida’s unique set of bistros to shell shops, Fine Arts to side walk café’s or drive less than one miles to "Sharky’s on the Pier", one of Southwest Florida's hottest night spots around. Dining to dancing on the deck with live and flashy bands or a stroll out on to the boards and watch as one of our area clubs brings in that big one; sharks in all sizes and shapes, rounding out your day of play in Venice Florida and its inshore Florida waters.
