King mackerel caught from a fast-trolling boat can produce big numbers and big fish.
According to a dictionary, “revelry” is an occasion of boisterous celebration. If a fisherman’s heart isn’t made joyous at the sound of a reel screeching as the drag slips line to a smoker king mackerel, he’s picked the wrong sport.
Revel may be an archaic word to some folks, but for the owner, crew and anglers aboard the Reveler, it’s an appropriate boat name. It was a late summer morning, with haze hanging heavy in the air when an engine yawned to life at Beaufort’s Town Creek Marina. Reveler’s owner, Capt. Pat DiGiuseppe, was fishing for fun, allowing his charter captain and mate, the husband and wife team of Carlos and Hope Sanderson, a lay day.
DiGiuseppe’s friend, Frank Gromadski, would handle mate chores. “If I didn’t enjoy getting out and fishing on my own, I wouldn’t own a boat,” he said. “There are some nice king mackerel biting offshore, and it’s a beautiful day to go after them.” While most anglers begin a day of king mackerel fishing by finding live baits and catching them with a cast net or by jigging them up with a Sabiki rig, Gromadski rigged Drone spoons and lures, along with thawing out some frozen squid. “You can catch some nice fish without wasting time catching live baits,” Gromadski said. “Trolling lures and rigged baits lets you move faster. Covering more water helps you find and stay on the fish.”
Tom Carlson, author of “Hatteras Blues — A Story from the Edge of America,” also was aboard for the fun. He had researched and written a documentary account of the rise and decline of the Hatteras charter fishing industry, tying it in with his own personal travails. The widely-acclaimed book has overshadowed Carlson’s own fishing talents. Even an author doesn’t go fishing for months at Hatteras and not learn something.
His written descriptions of fish and fishing show he appreciates being on the water, and the Reveler is the perfect boat on which to be afloat. In his book, Carson quoted Capt. Ernie Foster of the founding family of Hatteras sport fishing. “If you watch the way a big king mackerel hits a live bait, near your boat, it’ll probably change the way you look at life,” Foster said. “You see it’s beautiful and savage at the same time.
They don’t give a damn about anything but that fatback in front of them. Not anything. It’s that single-mindedness and the power, I guess. It sure makes you realize your place in the food chain, and it’s a couple of notches lower than you thought.” Carlson, a professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Memphis, hadn’t caught a king mackerel at that time. But he caught them that day and many days in the years since he went offshore aboard the Albatross fleet out of Hatteras. “You never forget catching your first king mackerel,” Carlson said. “I’m awed by every strike and appreciate kings for their speed, power and grace. A king mackerel is a beautiful fish.” As the diesels rumbled, Reveler made from the dock and was on its way out of Beaufort Inlet.
A 35-foot Carolina Classic, the boat has a 30-knot cruising speed. Once outside the inlet, the 15 nautical-mile ride to the Northwest Places and the Big Ten Fathom and Little Ten Fathom ledges took less than an hour. Reveler has been prominent in tournaments such as the Big Rock. The boat is rigged for bluewater fishing, with anglers making large catches of tuna, wahoo, dolphin and billfish. But king mackerel are always on the menu, whether as incidental catch of the bigger meatfish or when targeted on purpose. Offshore trolling boats usually don’t make good live-bait fishing boats for king mackerel. They’re difficult to maneuver in tight slow circles, a task center-console boats complete with ease while trying to stay on top of a lightly-hooked smoker king. But sportfishermen are made for trolling lures and baits at moderate speeds without banging anglers into the gunwales, the perfect way to catch large numbers of kings.
While live-baits enthusiasts believe bigger fish are always caught with live baits, the N.C.-record king smacked a trolled lure. So anglers with larger boats shouldn’t overlook the excellent king mackerel fishing available offshore of Cape Lookout. “Our half-day fishing trips are usually for king mackerel, unless big-game fish are within 40 miles,” DiGiuseppe said. “Sometimes we target kings during a three-quarter day fishing trip if they’re on the way to where the billfish are biting. “The Northwest Places and the Big 10 Fathom Rock and Little 10 Fathom Rock are always great places to check for king mackerel in the fall. There’re always lots of kings schooling there.” DiGiuseppe found a spot with a drop. He also checked the water temperature gauge. “There’s a drop of 10 feet,” he said. “The water temperature is ideal for kings this time of year. It’s between 66 and 67 degrees and bait is showing on the screen. “Kings can be out here spring, summer and fall, as long as the bait is here.
There can be dolphin and sails during the summer and fall, along with good bottom fishing for grouper and sea bass.” DiGiuseppe slowed Reveler to a speed of 7 knots, and Gromadksi began setting out the trolling spread. It was interesting to watch Gromadski rig squid. He used a Capt. Lloyd Eastlack rig that’s been around a long time. Eastlack owns and operates Bug-Em Bait Company in Wilmington and claims to have invented this simple rig, which he makes and sells it at his Wilmington store. Gromadski rigged used a 5-foot length of stainless steel, single-strand wire with a haywire twist for a snap swivel connection to the line. Next, a black-and-purple rubber trolling skirt with a speed head was threaded onto the wire.
The squid went on next, with the wire threaded in the tail and out the neck. A 6/0 straight shank hook was added to the end with a haywire twist. The squid could be replaced easily by removing the sinker and threading another one onto leader by inserting the hook point into the tail then out the mantle.
The sinker is then replaced and the hook point buried through the head of the squid. Ah, but what holds the squid in place? Gromadski revealed the key to the rig. “You put a twist lock, rubber-core sinker on the leader so it fits up in the squid’s body,” Gromadksi said. “The sinker fits tightly enough to hold the squid in place and can be adjusted whenever you put on another squid.” The sinker weight of ½ to ¾ ounce helps keep the squid below the surface. The rig allows a squid, one of the least expensive of frozen, natural fishing baits, to be pulled along at the same speed as spoons or other hard and soft-plastic trolling lures or cedar plugs, all of which ring the dinner bell for king mackerel, as well as other predatory fish. “You can’t pull a lure fast enough to take it away from a king mackerel,” DiGiuseppe said. “You just need to watch out for tangles or for baits washing out. With the squid rig, you don’t have to worry about either situation.” Kings were biting well that day.
The first squid in the water sent a rod into Carlson’s hands. He played the fish expertly and brought it to the gunwale. But it was a false albacore, not a king. “A false albacore is a hard-fighting fish,” he said. “But they’re not good to eat.” It was the first of many “fat alberts” that would attack baits meant for kings that day. Most anglers shun albacores because they can go through a supply of live baits in minutes. But when trolling lures and a few boxes of squid, catching them for fun is just a bonus.
And fun is what fishing aboard the Reveler was about. False albacore make good trolling baits when used as strips or sewed into tubes. They also make good sushi, but are otherwise not on the preferred eating list, so most of them were released. The Reveler’s king mackerel spread consisted of four lines. The squid rig was set at 100 feet from the out-rigger and was the longest line.
A red drone spoon was set next at 80 feet from a transom holder. Next came a green drone spoon at 60 feet from the opposite transom holder. The last line in the water was a metal lure set in the prop-wash. A king mackerel fears nothing and much to the contrary seems attracted by the commotion and turbulence created by the propeller of a diesel engine. They often strike lures trolled just beyond tangling in the propeller. Single-hook metal lures and spoons were fished with trolling sinkers, painted black to keep king mackerel from striking them and cutting them off. Still, they sometimes mistake the sinkers for baitfish and strike them anyway. It’s all part of the game.
“Single-hook lures help when unhooking fish,” Gromadski said. “They’re easier to shake free when putting a king mackerel in the box, and you aren’t as likely to get a hook in your hand or a tangle. If you keep the line tight, a big single hook will land any king.” After a strike, DiGiuseppe sometimes slowed the boat and circled. But just as often he kept moving in a straight direction to prevent a tangle. When the only lady angler aboard, Carol Marsh, took her turn in the seat, DiGiuseppe took mercy and slowed a couple of knots while she reeled in a king mackerel of about 20 pounds. “Whew,” she said. “That’s a nice king. Reeling one in that big at that speed would be tough without the chair.”
A fighting chair is a comfort when battling a big king with trolling tackle. While light tackle puts less of a strain on the angler as well as the fish, using 20-pound and 30-pound trolling tackle with drag settings of 8 pounds can tax an angler and the fish. Putting the rod into a fight belt or a fighting-chair socket helps control the heavy rod, eases back strain and puts more pressure on the fish. The power of a king mackerel is truly felt with suitable-size trolling tackle. The most difficult thing was keeping lines in the water. As DiGiuseppe circled the concentration of kings and baitfish showing on his depth-finder screen, Gromadski had his hands full, trying to keep a squid rig in the water and coaching anglers battling multiple hookups. But once, in the act of rigging yet another squid, the impromptu mate paused, looking at the fall sky.
He watched anglers battling kings on the big rods, stuck with hooks on baits and lures he had rigged. He smiled broadly as eyes turned toward him to see if anything was wrong. “It doesn’t get any better than this, does it?” he said. Everyone paused for a moment to revel in the smell of the salt, the sight of the fall sky dotted with clouds, and the tug of a big king mackerel trying to yank the rod from cramping fingers.
But the pause lasted only a second. Then it was back to pandemonium again. Everyone was laughing, shouting and passing rods around one another to keep the hooked king mackerel and false albacore from using the monofilament lines to complete their version of a knitting bee. Getting caught atop a thickly swarming school of ravenous October king mackerels was certainly by any saltwater angler’s definition an “occasion of boisterous celebration.” The boat was well named, for there was indeed a hearty bunch of revelers aboard.
