How to catch one of the most exciting fish in the Gulf without getting on a boat

For angler S. David, the Sunshine Skyway fishing piers give him a chance to target one of the most exciting fish to catch in the Gulf without getting on a boat.

And over the past few weeks, he’s taken advantage by landing a pair of smokers.

“It hasn’t been as good as a few years past. In 2019, it seemed like the pier was catching 10 a day,” David said. “Right now it’s averaging about one or two a day when people are fishing for them. It’s primarily the spring and fall time, so from mid-March until the end of April.”

What David and other bridge anglers are targeting is kingfish, and big ones at that.

A pelagic that ventures up the west coast of Florida in the spring and then return south during the fall, big ones make their way into the bay along this journey. As a state park, the Sunshine Skyway Fishing Piers allow him and others to access deeper waters of the bay.

“We usually get two or three good weeks a season. The first one was caught last week on Tuesday. Then I got a pair of big ones, one on Wednesday and the second on Thursday,” David explained.

Journeying down from the Tampa area where he goes to school, David prefers the access of the North pier as it’s closer to him. But he said the south pier is also good and a matter of preference. When he sets up to fish for kingfish, he deploys a trolley rig, which is a highly specialized technique.

“We like to fish big live baits. Ladyfish, blue runners, mackerel. Big and flashy seems to get the big fish. With the trolley rig anglers cast a weight out to the rocks and get it snagged to then slide the big bait down tightly snagged line on another rod. It’s almost like fishing a kite rig. When it’s hit the line releases and you can fight it.”

On the big fish, sometimes a bit of luck and a lot of teamwork are needed to bring them up to the raised structure.

“Most of the fights on big fish are 15-minutes to an hour. You have to hope they don’t run you around the old bridge structure or other people’s lines. The other anglers out fishing work with you and help avoid tangles, it’s a lot of teamwork on a big fish. You need to talk with them and figure out over, under, all that,” said David.

His first fish last week weighed in at 33-pounds, while the next was slightly bigger and bottomed out a 30-pound Boga Grip scale.

“I’m not going to say there’s any one way to fish them. You’ve got to put in the time. I like a little choppier weather and clean water with a lot of bait. But sometimes they just aren’t around. The end of the week the fish seemed to leave when the windier weather came, and you’ve got to go to know if they come back,” David said as he fished through the rainy Friday weather.