# Navarre Kings go vertical



## terpdoc (Jan 8, 2012)

Admittedly, I am a “newb” when it comes to fishing the Panhandle area. My wife is the local and I only get to fish when we come and visit family. I don’t claim to know much about fishing but I do say that I am forever hooked. I love the area and the people who teach me so much. I just left this past Sunday for med school and am already planning a return trip. I am so hooked on fishing it isn't even funny anymore. 

What is wonderful about fishing the area is that I get a unique experience every time I come back. Last summer it was getting blasted by bull reds. Winter it was to blistering bonito. This past spring it was killing the sheephead, pomps, and Kings. This past summer it was all about the Kings. 

I ventured out to Navarre pier the 19th of June hoping to get my friend Joe on some Kings. Joe is like me, a med student, except the dude is like 6'4" and is built like a tank. He was only down for a short trip so I took him to the place where the odds of hooking up with a smoker were favored. We had a 5 lbs. box of cigs and a sabiki. The pier was peppered with remora and spanish so we went through the cigs pretty quickly pulling a mixed bag of heads, remora, and spanish out of the water. Kings were slow and we were down to our last three cigs. I was ready to give up since I had served up some nice live baits with no luck. (We were there for about 3hrs). I decided to give one more cig a go so I laced my treble with one.

It wasn't so much as a few seconds my cig hit the water and boom! A nice King goes perpendicular to the bait and airborne. It was the first time I had ever seen a King do this. It was like I was on the Nat geo channel on shark week. I jacked that hooked in his jaw a couple of times and the reel was on fire. I yelled over to Joe and let him finish this big boy off. He was 21 lbs :thumbup:

Is it common to see Kings sky on bait? Give me some feedback on this.


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## jjam (Dec 9, 2007)

Sweet! 

Thanks for the report and congratulations on a smoker king and yes, a skying king is always a nice surprise on the hook up.

Jimmy


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## djbradley (Jun 16, 2009)

A couple weeks ago I had one hit a daisy chain and shoot straight up about 20 feet.


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## NoMoSurf (Oct 2, 2007)

I've never had one sky on my bait. But i see them rocket on random fish while trolling all the time. Usually a 2 or 3 a day. I was fighting a king once while my buddy was reeling in the other rod. One rocketed on him but missed the bait. I was looking the other direction... :-(


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## bay slayer (May 26, 2008)

I would say its common. Back in march there was a day where kings were thick, some would sky so high that i thought they would land on the pier.


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## fishn4fun (May 11, 2008)

Great report thanks for sharing. And congrats


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## albacized (Nov 25, 2011)

Here's what this thread to me - I'm a former sunshine stater who has now lived in Massachusetts for over 25 years (thus I'm now officially a tourist when I go down there - but if you want to hear a true Boston accent, you'll have to talk to my wife..LOL)...but anyway, what it does is makes me regret that I already booked my annual FL trip down to the other end of the state (splitting time between Naples and Juno) and it was made even worse when I saw that it was a 9-10 ride from those areas up to your area (if it was 5 hours or less, perhaps I may have done it - I've driven from where I live just west of Boston to the Salmon River in Upstate NY just to fish for a day of two, but that 5+ hour trip is about the max I'd drive for one day of fishing)...and my trip is still a week away. 

It's not a full blown regret because I know when I'm in Naples, I'll have some fun with the snook (I've done that each year for the past 5 years or so - and it never fails) and the east coast turns out some good pier fishing for the albies ('bobos' to you), and always seem to tangle with at least a tarpon or two each trip, although I've only landed one...but there seems to be an element (and I'm guessing since I haven't fished the panhandle before) that makes your area a little more well rounded. For example, I both spin fish and flyfish...if I wanted to hop on the pier and chuck plugs around for kings, bonita or whatever, I could get my fill of that, then go somewhere to flyfish for reds, trout or whatever. 

Where I'm going, I have a pretty good pulse on a couple of opportunities, but will not have that full plate of opportunities you guys have up your way.

I'll make sure I head down that way next summer - and in fact, may actually start doing shorter 3-4 day trips to make it a bi-annual thing (since redfish and bonita seem to go off in the winter down there as well)

But anyway, sounds like you guys 'got it good' down there


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## devinsdad (Mar 31, 2010)

You and Joe are the Kingfish Kings!!!! Way to go guys! Next time I get shark-bit, I hope you guys are the ones who sew me up!


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## bassassassin (May 30, 2009)

Great Report and nice king!


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## JD7.62 (Feb 13, 2008)

Nice king, and it is common to see them sky.

They can get some serious air too.

The last time I fished before this bad weather I was fighting a king and after a minute or two into the fight he jumped twice. Ive NEVER seen a king jump after being hooked though. It was pretty cool.


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## PompChaser315 (Feb 18, 2011)

albacized said:


> I've driven from where I live just west of Boston to the Salmon River in Upstate NY just to fish for a day of two, but that 5+ hour trip is about the max I'd drive for one day of fishing)...


You gotta be talking about Pulaski, NY.. I grew up Upstate and used to go to the river with my pops when I was a kid. We used to use big ole treble hooks and snag the shiite out of them!! (Dont think thats legal anymore though) The Salmon used to be in there so thick it almost wasnt even fair! People were friggin nuts too haha.Ahh memories. Caught some MONSTER Steelhead out of that river as well, I miss that river the fishing was awesome!! Is the run still pretty crazy up there?? I havent been in about 20 years


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## PompChaser315 (Feb 18, 2011)

Oh and nice king OP!! Sorry to derail!


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## albacized (Nov 25, 2011)

FUPAGUNT said:


> You gotta be talking about Pulaski, NY.. I grew up Upstate and used to go to the river with my pops when I was a kid. We used to use big ole treble hooks and snag the shiite out of them!! (Dont think thats legal anymore though) The Salmon used to be in there so thick it almost wasnt even fair! People were friggin nuts too haha.Ahh memories. Caught some MONSTER Steelhead out of that river as well, I miss that river the fishing was awesome!! Is the run still pretty crazy up there?? I havent been in about 20 years


Yeah, great place to fish - it's not quite as bad as it used to be in terms of crowds (due to strict 'no snagging' laws). They actually have a lot of enforcement down there...and not only can't you snag with a treble hook anymore, if they see you even attempting a snag like manuever (even with a fly rod), you'll be talking to an environmental police officer very soon...LOL. And to further prevent snagging, they've implemented leader length regulations as well as regs as to how far up the line your weight can be...But you're still not going to be fishing alone if you go there during the salmon run.

I don't get there in the thick of the salmon run as much as I'd like to because it more or less coincides with the bonito (true atlantic bonito that are good to eat) and albie (false albacore, which is what you call bobos) run and they're sort of my addiction at that time of the year (September)...However, if I get my fill of that in Juno Beach in a week, I may take more Salmon River liberties come September. 

It's cool you're from that area...despite the fact that its a pretty well known fishing spot, I only discovered it because way back before my married days (in the 1990's), I used to date a girl from Syracuse (actually a suburb named Clay) and whenever we visited her home, we took rides up north through Pulaski, up through Watertown and to the Alexander Bay/Thousand Island area

But anyway - didn't mean to hijack this thread...I've been a member of this site for the better part of a year and as I mentioned before, I've been chomping at the bit more and more to plan a vacation down in that area...and the OP opitimizes why I need to get there


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## KingFishin613 (Apr 9, 2012)

JD7.62 said:


> Nice king, and it is common to see them sky.
> 
> They can get some serious air too.
> 
> The last time I fished before this bad weather I was fighting a king and after a minute or two into the fight he jumped twice. Ive NEVER seen a king jump after being hooked though. It was pretty cool.


Usually if you hook a king and he is jumping out of the water after the initial hook up something is chasing him he probally got away if u got him up on the pier because 2 weeks ago i hooked the first king in the morning at Pensacola Pier and i saw him jumping and then as he ran out straight i saw a shark behind him and he hit him hard and my line snapped after that. But one day in April i had a buddy fishing kings were really crazy 75 caught total and at least 75 lost and one skyed so high on his bait u could touch him with ur fishing pole he was also really close to the pier as well.:thumbup:


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