Playing them softly

[Jordan Hack]

I got thinking the other day about a bloke I met who targets big kings off the stones down south. He was telling me that he had landed fish up to 25kg and I subsequently saw photos in a magazine to support his claim. When i asked how on earth he managed to land a king of that caliber off the rocks he said by playing them softly and not using the typical "stop or pop" them attitude. What reignited this thought was a GT I managed to land about a month ago that I thought I had no hope on. This fish of about 20kg was on the other side of several large bommies when I hooked it. At this point I had no choice but to let the fish do what it wanted and tried to lessen the tension off the the line by pointing the rod in the general direction of the fish. Miraculously the fish swam out from behind the bommie and the fish was landed. I have since repeated this technique on another occasion successfully. I was just wondering if other people have tried or use the play them softly approach on GTs. If so any luck, especially with the larger models.

[Peter Morris]

I tried the softly softly approach on kings of the rocks and got bricked every time...
I also tried the heavy approach and got bricked....Fishing 100-150lb straight through.
Sometimes you get lucky...It just depends on how the fish fights and where they run.
GT's and the softly softly approach I imagine would be similar.

Pete

[Andrew Poulos]

Doesn't work for me either off the rocks. 

[Tri Vi Ton]

i think it has alot to do with terrain, with crevices you would want to stop them i figure, same goes with pilons... but over fairly uniform reef i have found GTs to go fairly high in the water column OVER the coral... perhaps even with more pressure applied they are more likely dive deeper, and hence closer to danger.

i have caught some stoopid sized fish over pretty gnarly reef on 20lb gear. i had no choice but to go with the flow... where i have fished a 20kg fish is very landable on 30lb tackle with an experienced angler and good crew

in most cases if the fish wants to brick you then, it will (think bass and big cod)... i know guys even opening bail arms to confuse fish... any1 familiar with the "fishing DVD series"? there is a segment with landbased longtail tuna, its pretty eye opening stuff to see fish change direction when pressure is dropped... perhaps something to consider

i will post a pick of my lil brother and a 20-25kg fish, 30lb tackle... at any time if this fish wanted to bust him it could have. the reef drop is from about 1.5-2.0m to about 12-15m, pretty clean reef very few crevices... we didnt attempt to drag it to deep water, just followed him into the flats and fought him there

[Tri Vi Ton]

bros fish.....

[Jay Burgess]

Nice fish but looks more like 10-15kg rather than 20-25kg.

[Tri Vi Ton]

jay,
would have weighed the fish(in a sling/net) if my scales were more than 15kg. previously a fish of nearly 14kg was boated, this fish had two big bites taken from it. NOW the pictured fish was much bigger than the fish landed before it.. i will post a pic (not a very good pic, but gives you a pretty good indication of its size)of the same fish with my sister who weighs 50kg... i have ordered 50kg scales, to lessen contention on weights LOL... i am usually a very conservative judge of weights when not using scales...

anyways, i thought this thread was about playing the fish with a gentle approach... i replied to this thread more to get ideas aired about angling a fish rather than "100lb pull or pop" mentality, and posting the fish picture was to put some weight (so to speak) behind my thoughts   

[Andrew Poulos]

Tuna fight differently to GTs and Kings. These fish head for the nearest obstruction to try and get rid of whatever is stuck in their gob. At times, softly softly does work, but if the terrain is rough, you cant really afford to let a fish get down deep and amongst the rocks/coral. Tuna can be steered by freespooling and dont have the same habit of diving into rocks-and its also probably due to their habits of where they hunt.

[Tri Vi Ton]

hey andrew,
if that were strictly the case, why didnt the fish brick us, it could have easily done this at anytime, especially right at the beginning on the light tackle we were using.

has anyone made GT turn direction with free spool technique?

anyway im goin back with more appropriate gear next time 

[Andrew Poulos]

Some fish have different personalities is my opinion. Some fight like crazy, others just come straight to you no questions asked....

[Tri Vi Ton]

andrew,
maybe, the whole school of fish that day were from the lazy class!  ;)the other fish fought all played for some time, no immediate bust offs

[Sam Beeby]

With Kings, best would be to see the fish coming up to the bait/lure in the first instance, and be backed off from the word go or back off immediately if you feel excessive weight but before it wakes up which kings can take a while to do on bait. If things start out that way then you might have a chance, but if they feel the sting and bolt, its pretty hard to expect a green fish to just relax again when you decide to ease the drag off. They've just kept going every time for me. Backing off here and there works well on a tired fish that your trying to wear out before you bring it into the ledge. Some kings come in on their sides not even kicking and then suddenly explode at your feet so its worth doing I 'spose. But this is all done with lever drags and star drags you can freespool, and mono that might be rasping right over a drop off for longer than braid could ever handle. I imagine Softly sofltly would be really hard to do with lures fished at a massive strike drag on eggbeaters which are always going to be difficult to dump drag on. The local kingy guru near me fishes hand-drag alveys!

[MikeOsborn]

I have caught many Kingfish to 27kg in 6m of water using the gently gently technique but a fish with 2 big trebles in seems to go a hell of a lot harder than one hooked livebaiting.

At the end of the day fish are stupid but some are dumber than others

[Tri Vi Ton]

lol thanks for your thoughts guys