The iconic king george whiting is one of Australia’s most sought-after fish species.

Sometimes KGs can be a tricky species to locate and capture, especially for shore-based anglers, and while you may be able to find the odd one or two, finding numbers of them can be a real challenge.

With the weather not favouring our normal land-based fishing, we decided it was time to target KGs. With a quick stop for fuel and bait on a fine Sunday afternoon it wasn’t long until we were at our location near Albany. We set out on foot for a promising looking part of the bay which featured a nice flat rock ledge and some good depth, with sandy bottom and small reefy patches.

Upon settling on the promising rock platform we assessed the conditions and sat down to tie on Black Magic Whiting Snatchers in the Red Worm pattern. These quality pre-made paternoster rigs feature Black Magic’s legendary Japanese KL recurve circle hooks and quality 7kg (15lb) fluorocarbon trace, and we added bait to spice it up even more. We weren’t sure what to expect, but the first cast resulted in an average-sized sand whiting which bit as soon as the rig hit the bottom. A few more casts resulted in a few mixed species but no king george, although cranking in the rigs to check the bait, found herring and skippy eagerly chasing the tinsel.

This meant we soon had some fresh baits and whacked a few small cubes on the hooks. The first cast with fresh bait produced a bit of a different inquiry with some very timid bites. Eventually it started to slowly move off with the line and the hook was set, resulting in a nice king george just over 30cm.

After a couple more inquiries and another KG caught in very similar circumstances we cracked a pattern. We had to have fresh bait on and cast near some of the flat rocky bottom towards the sand edges, but not too close or our bait would be taken by poor quality fish. At times we believed we had lost the bait from the bites of poor fish and would go to wind in, only to get smashed by a decent KG. We believed this was due to that flashy tinsel on the Black Magic Whiting Snatcher. Our theory was that the poor quality fish would pick at the bait and the whiting would be attracted to the activity, and when the bait was gone and the other fish swam away, the whiting would move in to investigate.

With this slight interest that tiny bit of movement in the rig would then trigger them to bite the flashy tinsel. This seemed to be a common occurrence throughout the afternoon and resulted in a number of good king george even by offshore standards, including a 49.5cm thumper!

In the end we finished with around a dozen nice whiting and it again proved no matter how much you fish you always learn something new. We have targeted king george whiting from the shore in the past with very little success, but we were on a learning curve and this method has since shown consistently very good results, proving the worth of Black Magic Whiting Snatchers.

GEAR SPECS:

• Black Magic Whiting Snatcher
• Made with pink or green lumo beads for added attraction
• KL recurve circle hooks
• 1 paternoster rig per pack
• 7kg (15lb) fluorocarbon leader

VERDICT:

A fantastic pre-made rig from Black Magic which will give you the edge when targeting king george whiting or other similar bread-and-butter species.