Kingfishing for Wahoo
During the summer months, almost every local to St. Augustine hears about Kingfish… there are tournaments with million dollar center-consoles and stories of old locals that caught the “smoker on the beach”. For most charter captains the hot summer months, customers, and kingfish go hand-in-hand.
St. Augustine offers one of the most fun fisheries this time of year because it meets the expectations of what many fisherman are looking for; that is a calm ocean, plentiful and hard fighting fish, and trolling offshore without having to make the sixty mile ride out to “The Ledge.”
Live-bait trolling our nearshore reefs, inshore of ten or twelve miles, is what I do with almost every charter during the summer. The typical species are Kingfish, Cobia, Barracuda, and occasionally Sailfish. On one of the trips this summer I was surprised to hook up a different species, a Wahoo.
Wahoo are among the most prized catches for anglers and Northeast Florida is no stranger to exceptional Wahoo fishing. The winter-time wahoo fishery is truly world class. Anglers high-speed troll and dead bait troll for them religiously. Anglers argue about which technique is more effective or requires more skill. While that is a highly debated subject, there is no debate that catching one of these fish within sight of the St. Augustine skyline is an unusual accomplishment.
We started our morning catching Pogies, a palm-sized baitfish ideal for Kingfish at our nearshore reefs. After a short ten mile ride offshore to a reef called Pop Warner we set out these baits for live-bait trolling. Fishing was slow for the first hour. My typical conversation with customers was starting to run dry and they were looking at me, wondering if they just blew money on a charter or if the fish were going to start biting soon. This look of doubt is one that many charter captains are familiar with.
As I rounded the boat to make another pass over the reefs I noticed an explosion on one of our baits quickly followed by a screaming reel. Whether it was the fish gods telling me or a pure lucky guess, I immediately told the customers “That’s a wahoo!”
We fought the fish for almost an hour before getting it close enough to positively identify. The fish closed into about 30 feet and I saw the notorious fluorescent blue stripes on the body of the fish that every wahoo fisherman loves to see. My heart was pounding and my clients forearms were burning. The fish got close enough for a gaff shot and, as I dragged it over the rail, the excitement level on the boat boiled over! My clients and I had caught a big wahoo on the nearshore reefs on “kingfish tackle.”
Just a few hours after we left the dock, we arrived back to the marina with the prized catch. The Wahoo, a few Kingfish, and a Cobia filled the box. The fished weighed in at 69 pounds, a big one for 60 feet of water within sight of land. My clients generously gave me a few filets to take home and I was on to the next adventure.