Curtain kingys

[kalb087]

Hi all,
Was fortunate enough to have had this week off work and made the most of the good weather earlier in the week. Actually landed my pb snapper on the Tuesday. But anyway on the way home we had a mac tuna on board so decided to go get some lives an burley the $hit out of curtain to try turn up a monster cobe or kingy. After about 40 mins of burleying 3 of the biggest kingys I have ever seen were circling the boat. I thought you beauty we're on here......but no. They were eating everything without a hook in it. We tried livies, we tryed every form of dead bait we had, we tried hiding the hook in a squid hood, we even tried dropping the leader to 10lb. But nothing....they would have a close look and than swim away. So my question is does anyone have any ideas what we could have done different cause the ego has been crushed getting out smarted by a fish.?

[BLOOEY]

Hey mate, i remember having the exact same thing happen to me. In the end a small 50cent sized fillet of garfish, hook totally hidden and a small piece of styrofoam also fully hidden to offset the hook weight got a bite. Hard work sometimes!! Ben

[NAGG]

Yeh ...... go a much smaller bait - pillie pieces not much bigger than a stock cube - unweighted with the smallest hook practical ........ Had kings , cobes , mahi mahi & yellowfin tuna do the same over the years - > Certainly frustrating but exciting at the same time .
Also used a piece of high density reddy brown coloured foam up the shank of the hook above a stripey / slimey cube to help suspend the bait when fishing calm conditions.

Chris

[kalb087]

Yeh got the heart rate goin but was definitely frustrating. Was seconds from swinging the gaff around like a lunatic tryin to get one.

[Horse]

You are not the first boat these fish have seen. You can go down to very light leader and small hidden hooks to get a strike but good luck holdong a fish out of the structure on the cobweb stuff

[bigjimg]

If all else fails,toss out the cast net.Then it would be the biggest live bait ever cast netted.Jim

[cuzzamundi]

Hard luck, mate. Surprised the grey suits didn't turn up. Best suggestion I can think of is to try and replicate the size of the cubes you're letting out, and hope that a frenzy ensues. They can be bloody smart, the bigger pelagics. Frustrating.

Cuzza

[ozynorts]

Get out a spear gun and shoot em as they go past the boat.

[patske]

They are that big for a reason :)

[johncar]

I have been in that exact position many times with the big buggers at the boat following up the berley. Yes they are unlikely to take anything close to the boat no matter how well it is presented. I have had success though by chunking up pillies plus the off whole one and just tossing them over sparingly and then feeding a light mono line approx 8KG with say a 20KG leader tied directly to the main line, no swivels or such. A 5.0 7766 mustad hook with a no4 black swivel through the eye of the hook. Put a whole pilly on and let it float back in the current and slowly sink with the bits of berley. It might get close to the bottom before they hit it but they usually do, then the fun begins.

I actually did gaff one many years back, stupid thing to try particularly as I gaffed the tail end. The gaff hooked up and would have pulled me over the side had I not let the gaff go. The gaff popped up on the surface a few minutes later so I didn't lose it luckily. They have an amazing amount of power in that situation and regardless I would never try it again just from the point of view of wounding the fish.

[cuzzamundi]

Good info, Johncar. Whereabouts do you place the single hook through the pilly?

Cuzza

[marto78]

I have been in that exact position many times with the big buggers at the boat following up the berley. Yes they are unlikely to take anything close to the boat no matter how well it is presented. I have had success though by chunking up pillies plus the off whole one and just tossing them over sparingly and then feeding a light mono line approx 8KG with say a 20KG leader tied directly to the main line, no swivels or such. A 5.0 7766 mustad hook with a no4 black swivel through the eye of the hook. Put a whole pilly on and let it float back in the current and slowly sink with the bits of berley. It might get close to the bottom before they hit it but they usually do, then the fun begins.

I actually did gaff one many years back, stupid thing to try particularly as I gaffed the tail end. The gaff hooked up and would have pulled me over the side had I not let the gaff go. The gaff popped up on the surface a few minutes later so I didn't lose it luckily. They have an amazing amount of power in that situation and regardless I would never try it again just from the point of view of wounding the fish.


Imagine the carnage if you had manged to lift it into the boat. We did that with a green dollie last year and it just about destroyed the boat from inside out plus kicked the sh!t out of us at the same time. There is not a lot of room in a small boat with a big angry fish going berserk ;D

[Beatsworkin2]

Curtain kings seen it many times u will never get em at the top of the water column in ur burley trail tried so many times even with 4kg and a whiting hook like I had a chance u will get them on the bottom though using livies use a 10 ball running sinker 80pound jinkia or wot ever ur preferred leader hook the livie through the nose and if u get one hang on