Mayor – A king for all seasons!
By Kevin Dhillon, Bay Fisher Magazine New Zealand

I have been chasing kingies for some time now and the Mayor Island Pins are definitely my favourite stomping ground. The pins are known for holding some big kingies; but even the average-sized fish will put your gear through its paces.

Contrary to belief, winter is still an excellent time to chase big kingies and – better still – they seem to come in shallower. The deeper pins start to thin out as the water and air temperature starts to plummet but that’s when some of the fish move into the shallower water. I am by no means an expert but many conclusions, or should I say theories, have been formulated from input from charter operators, keen anglers and personal experience over the years. Don’t ever close your mind to learning new things.

A common misconception is that the fish move out deeper during winter. This might be correct to some extent but we have found over the years that many fish also move into shallower grounds. The fish do seem to be a little slower on the bite during winter but that does not mean that they won’t eat at all. Kingfish are predators after all, and either a jig on their nose or a livie pulled through the group will most of the time produce a bite.

The fish seem to hold in anywhere from the surface of the water right down to 30 metres, and for those who chase kingies around Mayor this is certainly still shallow. This depth also means that the fish have a lot more grunt and they fight really dirty. The long surface runs are almost tuna-like behaviour and in cases where there is some structure on the bottom it is only a short run for the fish to plant your gear there; it certainly puts the odds in the kingies’ favour. They run for the closest structure that they can find, and the key is to turn them before they get to that piece of rock or structure. I am a big believer in heavy drags; I always fish heavier drags when I am in the shallows as you have no room to give.

The fish for us have been showing up on the sounder as big red blobs with green halos, which indicate solitary fish actively hunting or cruising; this seemed to be the case most of the times. That said, they also school up at any structure that they can find in the shallows: this could be small rises or craypots, even. It is great when you can actively hunt for these individual fish and drop a jig right on their noses: they readily take a jig – although a live bait performs equally well. We did find that the schooling fish were a lot easier to catch on a live bait, while the individual fish took a jig more readily. Perhaps the latter are hunting for prey.

The gear needs to be able to stand up to these shallow-water kingies, as they do put up a huge scrap … it’s as close as it gets to a street fight. The shallower water also allows the use of lighter gear for catching these awesome sport fish. We have been using all jigging master powerspell rods including a 250, 300 and 400 (definitely heavier end) for jigging, and a heavier custom Kojak acidwrap 450 for our live baiting. All rods are running Shimano Ocea 4000p or the new JM PE5 reels. I am very biased towards my JM PS 300 and love it to bits, as do most of my mates; the rod has plenty of grunt but certainly allows you to have some sport out of the fish as well.

We have spent a fair few days jigging around Mayor Island and have found that a Zest pink/blue and Zest silver/blue in the 370gm weight have outperformed all other jigs available for us. This does not mean that the other jigs don’t work; these are just the jigs that have worked for us. The silver/blue jig perhaps represents a korehu (kingfish lollipops) or a kahawai, the pink/blue perhaps represents a blue mackerel. As far as live baits go, I love having some korehu onboard but in most cases a kahawai or a jack mackerel still gets the job done fairly well. I always prefer using fluorocarbon regardless of when I am jigging or live baiting: I run 120lb fluorocarbon for jigging and 80lb fluorocarbon for live baiting. It is a lot easier to get away with heavier leaders on jigging – unlike live baiting, where presentation is the key, jigging works on the fish’s aggression by causing vibrations in the water; that coupled with the fact that it is trying to escape makes the kingfish mad.

The winter gone we spent a fair few days chasing these monsters of the shallows and we came up trumps. I got told that kingfish don’t hit a jig during night time; contrary to that theory we caught heaps just on dark and on through most of the night. Just goes to show that experimenting can certainly provide results. We fished all morning without too many fish, but come evening it all turned and we had a session that will live in my memory for a long time. For the day we managed to land 8 kingies but for the evening and night session we landed over 23, keeping 3 for the smoker. The size averaged around the 12-15kg mark though some pushed the scales to around 23kg – and we got reefed by some bigger ones that we just couldn’t stop even with 20kg of drag being applied. We did catch the odd barracuda, but kingfish were definitely more prominent.

The next time we headed out to the same spot we got similar results, but this time the live baits outperformed the jigs. Again, the key was to experiment and find out what was working better. The raw power of these fish never fails to amaze me: the sheer drive to free themselves of that hook and the determination, with which they fight, makes them perhaps the ultimate game fish that can be caught in numbers in one day in New Zealand waters. Mechanical jigging is one of the most efficient ways of catching these brutal beasts, but never ever discount a live bait or any other new method.

I hope that this coming winter, rather than hanging the old fishing boots up, you will go out there and chase these magnificent fish in the shallows; it is certainly something that everyone should experience.

I look forward to seeing you on the water sometime this winter!