Florida King Mackerel fishing getting hotter!
Posted on January 7th, 2017I love to change up the fishing when I’m in southwest Florida and in the last month I have been targetting off-shore Grouper, inland Redfish & Snook and now chasing big King Mackerel.
We recently went out with our friend Tyler DeGraff who works at Fine Bait & Tackle, North Port, FL and also books fishing trips from shore and off-shore. Tyler runs a 24′ Hydra-Sport powered by a Yamaha 225 hp outboard. We took his boat and headed off-shore with two other friends, Darren & Leroy and had a great time. We started off spending about 2 hrs. catching our baitfish and than headed out deeper for the King Mackerel. Seas were quite high between 4-6′ which was no problem for the 24′ off-shore boat. Within 30 min. of running out baits out we started hooking Kings.
My first King too all the line out on my reel 3-times right down to the bare spool until it started slowing down.
Leroy who hails from the northern US is learning quickly how to rig, hook-up and fight these great fish.
Darren who is originally form Massachusetts and now a resident of southwest Florida fished Kings regularly and takes advantage of getting out on the water whenever he can. Kings are migratory and right now they are off Florida’s Gulf coast and I plan on taking full advantage of them.
