King George Whiting

How to Catch King George Whiting

Rigs and Techniques

A light, 5-8kg bait-casting rod will do nicely for King George whiting with 4-8kg mono or braided line. It is largely accepted that fishing with bait is the best way to catch King George whiting. The best baits are squid, sand or blood worms, prawns and whitebait threaded onto a long shank hook. Burley can be effective when fishing for King George, however this will attract a lot of scavengers which makes it hard to get your bait to the bottom.

King George Whiting
You may want to use a small sinker to drop you bait onto the bottom and you may need to give a light tug on the line occasionally to ensure your bait is still on the bottom. Whiting are fussy feeders and they don’t bite hard (which is why many King George fishermen use the more sensitive gelspun line) so if you feel the fish ‘suck in’ the bait they may spit it back out again and you will benefit from giving them a little line so they can have another go at it. Once the bait has been taken though it will only take a firm upwards movement to set the hook.

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KING GEORGE WHITING FACTS

Other names

Sillagnodes punctate, spotted whiting, KGW and KG.

WA Distribution

Found from around Dongara in the north to the southern Western Australian border in the south. They are usually found in shallow inshore waters less than 10m deep in areas of broken reef habitat on sandy patches adjacent to seagrass beds or reef. Although larger fish will tend to inhabit deeper waters further offshore around coral formations.

Description

The King George whiting has the typical whiting down-turned mouth and elongated body but can be distinguished from other species by its brown/bronze colouring and dark brown to red spots and dashes along its body. These fish can grow up to about 60cm and more than 2kg, although most are caught at about half this size.

Burley For Small Fish

Burley1

This burley is suitable for burleying up any smaller species of fish such as herring, skippy and other smaller fish often referred to as baitfish. (yellowtail, scaly mackerel etc.)

Pre packed burley is available at all good tackle shops and is very convenient, however if you are doing a bit of fishing it is more economical to make your own. Half the fun is creating the ultimate fail safe blend of your own.

To start you will need a bag of pollard, you can find pollard at your local tackle shop or in many supermarkets or pet shops in the pet food section, it is mainly used as a chicken feed and is available in a variety of sizes depending on your needs.

Next you will need some fish oil of your preference. If you like you can experiment and find which one you think works the best. Fish oil is available at tackle shops in a range of bottle sizes.

Get yourself a small bucket and add some of the pollard, then, mixing carefully, add the fish oil until you get the desired consistency. Too much oil will make the burley thin and not stick in burley cages and floats. Too stiff and it will not come out of the burley cage or float as desired.

Remember that if you add water to the mix your burley mix will go moldy if you try to keep it for any length of time, so it is worth making a thicker mix than you would normally use and add water to suit at the time of fishing.

There are also a few tips for fine tuning your burley to your needs. If you want a stickier mix you can add a bit of plain cooking flour to your brew. If you want the burley to break up quicker you can add a bit of beach sand.

Another refinement is the addition of some bran. This will give some different grades of flake to your burley making for a larger cloud of burley once it hits the water, keeping the fish interested in the area around your bait for longer.

You can experiment with plenty of other additions to your burley. One popular addition is fish and chip shop batter skimmings from the deep fryers. This one can be tricky as it tends to float and can bring in the seagulls, which can hinder your fishing.

The last tip is to not use too much burley. The idea is to get them excited, not full.

Fine tuning the ultimate burley mix can be a lot of fun and is a great way to save a few dollars.

Where to Catch King George Whiting

KingGeorgeWhitingMetroShore

2022-02-02T15:12:54+08:00