Every year thousands of kingfish migrate to South Florida Waters where they spend the Spring and Summer months spawning offshore. They typically inhabit the reefs and ledges along Southeast Florida from the shallow 30ft reefs all the way out to the 120 ft ledge. The Jupiter/Palm Beach area holds some of the best live bait rod and reel commercial king mackerel fishing in the state. The abundance of bait such as sardines, threadfin herring and pilchards, provide commercial fishermen the bait needed for the spawning months.
Im very fortunate enough to know a few commercial fishermen who let me tag along and help them fill the box, from time to time. Well this year has been tough for the commercial guys as the weather has been rough and wet, thus far. This report is from the beginning of may, fishing the 60-70 ft North of Jupiter inlet in which we found a good school of spawning fish. We fish whats know as a triple hook rig, which allows you to fish mono or fluorocarbon leader instead of wire, resulting in more bites as well as easier and faster rigging. We fished both the morning and evening.
In the morning we caught around 25 fish, with he biggest around 50 lbs getting ripped to shreds by a Hammerhead shark boat side! The afternoon resulted in much slower results with 2 cobra, and 5 kingfish. all fish were caught on 50lb bullbuster fluorocarbon. Out of the 10 kingfish I caught this day I only had one kingfish cut me off using the triple hook method! Fluorocarbon and tight lines help with less cutoffs and more bites!