A pre-dawn Sydney Harbour session from kayak and small-boat angler MJ has delivered a tight walkthrough of the live-squid-for-kingfish playbook that still produces inshore in autumn: a Palomar leader knot, a 50 lb fluorocarbon dropper, DeepInk squid jigs and a willingness to bin the kingie plan when the harbour delivers a flathead instead.
MJ ran the dawn drive into the harbour with fishing partner Cass and a single objective. "The goal is to catch live squid and send them out for kingies," he said. The kingfish stick was the heavy half of the setup: a Daiwa Saltist P4696 paired with a 10K Saltiga reel and 60 lb J-Braid. "That's what we're going to be using for kingies today if there's any around."
The terminal rig was a Palomar leader to a pair of 5/0 BKK hooks. MJ walked through the knot in real time. "Let's tie a uni. Put it through there. Give it some line. Wrap it around. About six wraps. One, two, three, four, five. Pull this up and just give that some lubrication and just pull and it cinches down. That's a strong knot. That's not going anywhere." The leader was 50 lb fluoro running off the braid - heavy enough to handle a harbour kingie, fine enough not to spook a live squid in clean morning water.
The day opened with a curveball that demonstrated the value of having a livie ready. "While it was still the early morning, it was good for kings," MJ said. "We hooked onto a good-size flathead." Instead of swapping rods, he rigged a fresh-caught squid head-first onto the kingfish stick and dropped it back down. "Put on a squid and casted him out. In the meantime, we went squiding."
The squid bite turned out to be the highlight. After early pickers shredded his first few jigs, the harbour switched on. "Many casts in our bag kept getting picked to P3, and straight away we were on," MJ said. "Three casts, three squid. No, three cast, three squid. Cass has got one." All of them came on DeepInk jigs, which he singled out as the morning's standout lure. "All on the DeepInk. That guy's perfect strip bait for jewies, kings. Very good."
The dispatch routine was deliberate. MJ killed each squid with a quick chop to the hood. "Right here. Curry chop. Hood's white. They got the head. He's all white." The first two squid went into a livewell as kingie ammunition. The third, larger fish was earmarked for strip bait. "This guy's a bit bigger. Maybe use this guy strip bait. Perfect for kings and jews."
The kingie quarter of the session never quite fired. Despite the rigged livie dropped in the prime morning window, no kings came up. MJ closed the trip with a pragmatic verdict typical of harbour anglers who fish autumn mornings: bag the squid, freeze the strip bait, and try again on the next tide. "Unfortunately kings ended up getting some arrows. Going to use those guys for bait. We cleaned them, packed them up, and chucked them in the freezer."
The takeaways for anyone working Sydney Harbour right now are reasonably clean. Live squid is still the highest-percentage livie when the harbour is holding kings, DeepInk jigs are converting in the pre-dawn window, and a Palomar-rigged 50 lb leader with twin 5/0 hooks is enough heft to hold a harbour kingie without killing the live-bait presentation. And if the kings don't turn up, the squid themselves are not a bad day - clean, fresh, frozen, and ready for the next jewie or kingie trip.
