Cold weather brings different plans to catch kingfish, sailfish

January cold fronts heat up South Florida’s offshore fishing for a variety of species.

Just as snowstorms send northerners scurrying to our area, cold fronts send schools of sailfish and other migratory species swimming south in search of warmer waters.

When the sailfish get here, that doesn’t mean you can simply head offshore with live bait and catch all of the acrobatic, hard-fighting fish you want. You have to know where to go.

For some, that means calling all their buddies from Jupiter to Miami and asking them where they’re catching sailfish. For others, that means hanging out at charter docks, boat ramps and tackle shops and listening to fish stories.

Trends are important. Are the sailfish being caught in a few specific places each day or are they being caught a little farther south each day? Just because they were off Fowey Light yesterday doesn’t mean they’ll probably be there today.

Once you get to the general area where the sailfish should be, you want to look for clues as to their exact location. Color changes, where the water goes from green to blue, are a good place to start. Most anglers fish the pretty blue water on an edge, but the cloudy blue water often holds sailfish. Sailfish also hang out around tiny weedlines 2-3 inches wide.

One of the most effective ways to catch a sailfish is by suspending a live bait from a fishing kite and having it splash on the surface, but many anglers neglect to cover the rest of the water column. In addition to deploying a couple of kite lines, put out one or two flat lines and a deep line.

A frisky bait attracts attention from sailfish, as well as from predators such as kingfish, dolphin, wahoo and tuna. But even the liveliest bait can wear out in a strong current or when a variable wind makes the fishing kite go up and down. Top sailfish anglers always go out with more bait than they will need and they constantly watch their baits, changing them the instant the baits look tired.

When you do everything right, especially when sailfish are on the move, multiple hook-ups are common. If a sailfish comes up and eats a kite bait, keep an eye out on the other baits, because chances are another sailfish is around.

If you do hook more than one sailfish, chances also are good that the fish will cross the lines. The easiest way to uncross them is to put the rod tips together, which allows you to immediately see which line is over the other.

When kingfish are biting, it doesn’t take much to go offshore and get in on the fun. One of the most endearing traits of king mackerel is that they eat a wide variety of live and dead baits, as well as lures and flies.

Kingfish tournament anglers like to slow-troll big baits such as 3- to 5-pound blue runners and bonitos, but drift boat anglers routinely catch nice kingfish on dead sardines and ballyhoo plugs fished on three-hook rigs or 1-ounce jigs with an extra hook or two.

Charter boats like to troll strip baits with Sea Witches on planers. Trolling plugs that dive 20 or 30 feet deep, such as Rapala’s CD-18 and X-Rap Magnum, also can be effective.

Captain Bouncer Smith likes to use live pilchards or threadfin herring for kingfish, although he did say that big baits usually catch bigger kingfish.

Smith rigs the bigger baits by putting a circle hook just in front of the dorsal fin with 3 or 4 inches of wire running from that hook to a J-hook stuck in the back of the bait. Kings typically get hooked on the J-hook, but if a sailfish eats the bait, it’ll get caught in the corner of the mouth by the circle hook.

When drifting with smaller baits like herring, Smith puts a 6/0 circle hook in front of the fish’s dorsal fin because it makes the bait more active than if it was hooked in the nose.

As far as where to fish, Smith said “slightly dirty water seems to be better than clean water. If there’s a rip in the 90- to 120-foot range, you always want to start there. The stronger the current, the shallower you fish. In 3 knots of current, fish no deeper than 120 feet. If the current’s a half-knot, fish in 150-180.

“Once you find where they’re at, whatever method you find them on, stay in that area.”