King
Fish are one of our famous fish we target here on the West coast. They
can be a load of fun and make for great table fare. These fish are
swimmers and they must swim to survive so that makes for a very "chummable" fish.
Sometimes we anchor over hard bottom and there won't be a fish in site
but within just a few minutes of chumming, the water will start erupting
with Kings slamming free-swimming bait that I have chummed with. Then,
hang on because we are fixing to have a lot of bent rods and screaming
drags. Once you have them around the boat you can usually continue
to catch them for several hours, but we usually don't because of sore
arms and all the meat we want. These fish get big with average size
of 30"-40", but they can get up to 70"-80" and
50lbs. to 60lbs. commonly. When the Kings are running almost everyone
wants to get in on the action, even if it is just for a little while.
We still use somewhat light tackle for them. We will be using spinning
rods and 10-14 lb. test line with a leader and then a piece of wire
just before the hook to keep the toothy fish from cutting you off.
These fish can make runs of 100 yards or more after you hook into one
and that is why they are called Smokers. When you see smoke coming
off of your reel you know you have hooked into something.
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