We bumped into Grant Dixon (editor of NZ fishing news) out at the Mokes and he took this photo. Below is text for a story I wrote for NZ Fishing News to go with the photo! In search of the big November kings I love the way fishing and hunting in each month of year brings new challenges and opportunities. It really allows you to connect with the passing of seasons in a tangible, personal way. For me, November is all about kingfish. Big kingfish. This is when the big boys are first returning in numbers from further north, when they are still in prime condition before racing around spawning over summer, and before they’ve had too much fishing/spearing pressure. This year it looked like November was going to slip away without a big king hunt driven by the weather, 3 teenage kids and work commitments. As luck would have it an opportunity opened up on the last day of the month when a business trip to Australia was cancelled and the weather came good. I reached out to my mates in the Axemen Spearfishing club and my Axebro Marcus, who’s self employed and loves a mid-week spear, signed up. The trip turned out to be a successful one. I’ll aim here to use this trip to bring to life my learnings around the keys to success when seeking to spear big kingfish. 1. Go where the big kingfish are. Big kingfish love remote locations with pinnacles or headlands coming up from the deep and plenty of current. Big kingfish hotspots are White Island, Mayor Island, the far north of Great Barrier Island, the Mokohinau Islands and of course the mighty Three Kings. We only had time for a day trip and my boat, a Ramco 600 fisherman, is stored at our farm at Pakiri, so the Mokes was our destination on this trip. We dived a great pin near Fanal Island and while the current was running nicely it was quiet with only a few small kingfish spotted so off to Maori rocks we headed. There was a fishing boat in the area and someone had something big on their line which was a good sign, though we found out later that was a mako shark! I’m glad I didn’t know that before I got in, though in truth the presence of sharks is a good sign you are in big kingfish country! The key for finding the kingfish is to get up-current of pins or rock structures and find where the bait fish are. No baitfish, no kingfish, so keep looking until you find that sweet spot and then work it. This ended up being quite a long way from the boat at the far north of the rocks. 2. Be patient – let the smaller kingfish swim past! This is easier said than done, as sometimes it’s hard to tell how big they are and even for an experienced spearo letting decent kingfish swim past without pulling the trigger can be a tough ask. This is critical though as the bigger ones often take a bit longer to turn up and will be on the outside or deeper than smaller ones. On this particular occasion though patience was not needed. As soon as I got to the baitfish a school of about 15 big boys came in from the deep, agitated and in hunting mode. They were big all right – in hindsight I think all were 25kg plus and I’m not even sure the one I speared was the biggest. He swam right behind me and then swung wide on a long loop, which for him was not a good idea. 3. Be prepared – it’s critical to have big fish gear. Most important are a big float, slip-tip spear, long gun and I like a breakaway bungy-line setup. In this case my long (150cm) double rubbered gun came in handy as it was quite a long shot. Some like shorter guns that track a little better through the water but given the big boys hang out wide and deep I like a long gun. I also believe a slip tip is a must – this is a mechanism where the spear tip drops off on a cable once it’s through the fish, which prevents the spear from levering on the fish and ripping big holes in it. Again on this day this was critical as the shot was lower than I’d like in the upper gut area and given the weight about to come on a normal spear would have ripped out pretty quickly. The fish took off powerfully for deeper waters and I was soon hanging onto the float and being towed sideways about 50m, with periodic powerful runs to the deep trying to pull my big Riffe inflatable float under. Normal-sized hard floats can’t handle big kings - you will lose your fish and gear. It is important to keep the fish off the bottom where they can rip themselves off, and to get them up and away from sharks quickly. I managed to get the fish up after about a 10 minute fight which was just as well as a big 12 ft bronzie was circling it menacingly. It was a long swim back to the boat with my hand in the kings gills looking over my shoulder for the shark but there was no way I was giving up this fish to the taxman. Back on the boat Marcus and I tried to guess the weight. I guessed about 33-34kg but on the digital scales it went 37.5 kg. I’ve since realized this is the fourth 30kg+ fish I’ve caught diving with Marcus, with my biggest being 40.5kg from White Island (in November 2010) and his being 36kg from spot X near Great Barrier. We must be good luck charms for each other! The boat that had the big fish hooked earlier pulled up next to us and who should be on board but Grant Dixon who asked to take a photo for NZ Fishing News – a day of good luck indeed! - Kingie