King fishing - June 23, 2007

Went out this morning with two friends trolling for kings. We met at the dock at 6 am and didn't have to go far for bait. In fact we didn't even leave the dock as the menhaden swam right by the boat, I threw the net on them and we loaded up. We had to cull them as some were small but there were some nice 7 inch ones in there too. One more cast and we were ready to head out.

We had heard the beach bite was strong the day before so we headed out of the inlet and started to troll around the Topsail ledges. Apparently half of the folks in the Jolly Mon KMT heard the same thing and decided to come up here to fish. We saw over 35 boats. We hooked a few small fish and boated a ten pounder.

The bite being slow and the fish being small, we headed off shore about 14 miles. We found large schools of bait busting the surface (being chased) and trolled around them. We also jigged up some of the greenies they were chasing and used a mix of pogies and greenies in our spread. We hooked up several nice fish including a smoker that weighed in at 32 pounds! Then the bite died.

We came back to Topsail ledge and finished the day off with a 6.2 pound Spanish!



That smoker was the fattest King I have ever seen! I've caught longer and heavier but not a fatter one - he ate well for sure!



Nice day of fishing for sure!