Also known as Kingie, Hoodlum, Yellowtail Amberjack, Southern Yellowtail. Bait, technique, tide windows, and where the bite is on right now.
Hero spots in our coverage where Yellowtail Kingfish is in season for May. Click through for the live forecast.
For inshore kings, find the bait first — yakka schools over inshore reef bommies, kelp edges, breakwall corners and harbour markers. Anchor up-current and slow-troll or live-bait a slimy in the berley trail; the strike is unmistakable. For offshore kings, knife-jigging vertical structure (FADs, deep wrecks, current lines) in 50–200 m is the most productive method in Australia. Use minimum 50–80 lb braid with a 80–130 lb fluorocarbon leader and lock the drag — kings will bury you in the reef inside 5 seconds.
Tide-change windows on a moving tide are critical. The first two hours of a run-in tide on a moderate flow (1.5–2.5 knots through harbour markers, for instance) brings bait up and the kings follow. Slack water is dead. On deep offshore wrecks the slack period is actually the best time to get a jig down cleanly — opposite of inshore.
New moon and full moon spring tides are the classic "kingie tides" — strong current pushes bait, kings actively hunt. The two days after the moon phase tend to fish better than the day-of (current peaks a day late). Solunar major periods overlap dawn/dusk in summer, which is when most trophy kings are landed.
Size and bag limits vary by state (NSW: 65 cm, 5 bag; WA: 60 cm, 2 bag for most zones). Trophy kings 1.2 m+ are 20+ years old — strongly consider releasing the big ones. Verify rules at NSW DPI Fisheries / DPIRD WA / VFA before keeping fish.
From our training corpus of ~1.1M angler-logged catches across 14 regions. Last refreshed 2026-05-14.
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