During the months since I was honored by the membership of the SKA and elected to the organization’s Hall of Fame, I’ve had many congratulations and some good-natured heckling from angler friends.
The latest round of heckling has been to give up the goods on the rigs and spreads I use to catch big fall kings. In trying to appease my friends, here are some of my ideas from over the years.
I call the spread I’ll diagram here my prospecting spread. It’s what I use to begin fishing an area unless there is a reason why I can’t. Those reasons would be rough conditions, an inexperienced crew and such.
This spread is about the placement of certain baits and rigs, but the distances should be considered relationships rather than absolutes. When fishing a spot alone, the spread can be made larger to cover a little more water, while it can be made smaller, to eliminate tangles when fishing in a crowd.
I also know where every bait is all the time and can adjust the spread if a pattern develops where the fish favor a particular bait or location in the spread.
I use basic two-hook live-bait rigs, unless the baits are large. Then I add more stinger hooks as needed.
I use wire leaders and often use multiple-strand wire when fun fishing but use single strand during tournaments. I like my hooks to swing freely, so my multiple strand rigs are tied with figure 8 knots rather than being snelled. These connections can be crimped.
For my ribbonfish rigs, I use butterbean bucktails for the nose hook, rather than any of the other jig heads. I believe their flat sides deflect in the water and give my ribbonfish a little more action when pulled back to straight.
I’m not a big user of skirts, rattles and other attractors, but use them at specific locations in the spread, sometimes more frequently in dirty or rough water situations.
Most baitfish gather in schools as a form of protection. If they’re by themselves and a hungry predator swims up, guess who gets eaten?
If there are two baitfish, the odds are 50/50 regarding becoming somebody’s snack. The odds for survival increase dramatically with more buddies swimming with you, so it’s easy to see why baitfish school in large numbers.
In big schools the light reflecting off all the scales makes it difficult for a predator to pick out a single fish to attack, which is why predators usually circle the school and pick off stragglers.
I bring this up as a preliminary point as to why you should always first put out the longest live bait then work back to the boat. If the baits don’t see each other, they don’t know to try to swim together. However, if you put a short bait out first, you may have a difficult time getting a bait that should be positioned farther back in the spread to swim by it. This becomes especially crucial when you fish six lines as I usually do.
I begin with the longest line and set it so the bait is 100 feet behind the boat. I don’t use outriggers for live-bait king mackerel fishing, so this rod is placed in the starboard rod-holder, angled off the T-top.
For those of you who prefer to count “pulls,” this would be 65 pulls.
I fish a single naked (no weight skirt or rattle) bait with this line. Preferably it’s a large bait.
“Pulls” means how many times you pull the line the distance from the front of the reel to the first guide on the rod, to set the line in the spread. With Star Plasma live-bait rods, this distance is 21 inches, or 57.14 pulls for 100 feet. Since you never quite get exactly the full distance, I rounded that up to 65 pulls to be sure to closely approximate 100 feet.
The second line is the second-longest line. This bait is set 75 to 80 feet or 45 to 50 pulls. On this line I use a skirt or Turbo Rattler in front of a single bait.
I opt for lighter color skirts or Turbo rattlers in water that’s green to dirty and switch to darker colors when the water is blue. While I sometimes opt to use a Turbo Rattler, even in clear water, I always use one in dirty water. This rod is placed in the port rod-holder, also angled off the T-top.
The third line I put out is the deep down-rigger. I usually use a ribbonfish with this line and set it 20 to 25 feet or 15 to 18 pulls behind the down-rigger release and drop that down-rigger two-thirds of the way to the bottom. In 60 feet of water, it would be 40-feet deep. The starboard rigger is my deep one.
The fourth line to go out is the shallow down-rigger, fitted with a single large live bait, usually fished naked if the water’s clear, but sometimes I add a light-colored skirt if the water’s dirty. This bait is placed 20 feet or 12 pulls behind the down-rigger release and the down-rigger is dropped one-third of the way to the bottom. In 60 feet of water, it would be 20-feet deep. This line would be set with the port rigger.
I fish a boat with twin outboards and shut one down for trolling. My fifth and sixth line positions are rotated, depending on which engine is running.
I use a double-pogie rig behind the outboard that’s used for trolling. The baits are fished naked and are placed just beyond the back edge of the prop wash, usually about 30 to 40 feet. But these baits should be checked visually, not counted, since they’re so close to the stern.
Behind the motor that has been turned off, I fish a single naked bait. This bait is placed about 10 to 15 feet behind the motors and probably will be replaced often. If it isn’t getting eaten, it gets beat up by the prop wash when the motors are turned for steering. I like to use a big bait with this line.
When I have to use a smaller bait for the shortest line, I put a split shot, small egg sinker, or small bullet sinker on the line just above the swivel. This helps prevent the bait being pulled out of the water by the rocking of the boat and helps it stay down in the water where it can swim. The idea is not to pull it under, but to stabilize it at the surface.
Another way to help keep this bait in the water is to run the line through a trolling clip attached to the transom. If you don’t have a trolling clip, a small rubber band can be looped over the reel handle or reel seat clamp, then around the line and back over the handle or clamp. The objective is to lower the angle of the pull on the bait, which helps keep it in the water.
The setup just described is a “prospecting” spread.
Specific baits are put at set places and all depths and line lengths are known. Sometimes fish prefer certain baits. Some days fish are boat shy and some days they seem only to want the closest baits.
There are other variables, such as motor noise or vibration we can’t hear or electrical discharges from faulty wiring and many other factors no one can determine.
However, what we can figure out is for certain days, kings prefer one kind of bait at a certain location (distance behind or below), relative to the boat’s position.
When you begin each day with a spread that contains specific baits in known locations, you can easily see any feeding pattern form and adjust the spread to get another similar bait in the same approximate location and double your chances of catching a big fish.
Because you know the locations and types of bait with all lines in this spread, it’s easily adjusted. If the first several strikes come on the longest line, simply drop it back a little farther and get another line to just short of where it was.
If it happens with one of the shorter surface lines, adjust to get the other near that location. When it happens on the down-rigger lines, mover the other one up or down to get it to the same approximate depth.
As an extra benefit, the stagger of the lines at this spread allows one to maneuver to the right (starboard) pretty quickly. You can turn 90 degrees to the right and, in the length of the longest line, turn 90 degrees again. This allows you to reverse direction in just over the length of your longest line — if you turn right. This stagger tends to tangle if you turn sharper than about 60 degrees to the left (port) side.
Check out this slow-trolling spread and see if it works for you. It’s helped me catch a lot of fish.
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