This can only mean one thing to those of us weekend anglers. Kingfish are on the beaches and ready to cooperate! During June and July, kings come as close as a few hundred yards from the beach. Their breeding cycle brings them in to spawn, and some real smokers can be caught in even a small boat during these two months.
My son, Tom, made a trip this last week with his friend, Aaron, looking for some kings. Several reports of thirty pound plus kings coming from the beach had him excited. He hit the beaches trying to find some pogies for bait, but they had moved from where he caught them the week before.
So he turned and headed east to the first artificial reefs about nine miles offshore. After catching some cigar minnows on Sabiki rigs, he put some king rigs behind the boat for a slow troll. It took about a minute for the first bait to be slammed. An hour of trolling netted five snake kings about ten pounds each.
At that point he anchored over the reef and sent a couple of live baits to the bottom, resulting in foru nice kings - a pretty good day for a trip in a seventeen foot skiff!
The point here is that this time of year, almost any boat can catch some good kingfish within a mile of the beaches up and down the east coast. From Florida to North Carolina on the Atlantic, and to Texas in the Gulf, kingfish can be easy pickings for the small boat angler.
Watch the weather, use a thin wire leader, and slow troll some live menhaden shad (pogies), and you can have a superb trip. Many anglers have caught their biggest fish ever doing just this.
I would take a look at the local SKA tournament schedule before planning a trip. These guys are nice anglers, but 400 of them headed out looking for the same fish as you on the same day can make it tough!
