# Pier with the most kings



## king&strut (Jun 17, 2004)

Looks like Bogue Inlet pier has done pretty good this year on the kings. I have been following their website and they have caught some big ones too. Seaview also has done good. Don't know their numbers though. Just what I hear at the JR. Rick said Mercer's, KB, and Surf City have caught some but really not breaking any records yet. What do you think Mr. Wilson??


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## French (Jun 18, 2005)

it seems like it has been a really slow Sept this year. Last year Oceancrest killed it in Sept, but have not seen a report of the first fish this year.


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## pier-legend (Jan 14, 2004)

...well close as I can tell it is something like this.
..Ocean Crest far and away the most..they were close to 30 before their board shut down...
.. Kure has just over 20 for the season..again..give or take a couple..
..Surf City is at 16..
..Seaview is at 11-12...IF that many...
..Mercers..there is just no telling...but no more than 15....
..How is it at Jollys??...Ya'll keep a "board" and the rest of the Piers... its Pictures, or word of mouth....
..there may not be a fall run for kings...this is the new moon in september..and its muddy and stirred up for miles out in the ocean....


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

pier-legend said:


> ...well close as I can tell it is something like this.
> ..Ocean Crest far and away the most..they were close to 30 before their board shut down...
> .. Kure has just over 20 for the season..again..give or take a couple..
> ..Surf City is at 16..
> ...


 PL,I'm sure you remember when 30 was a good day,not a good yr...


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## king&strut (Jun 17, 2004)

I think Bogue is around 25-30 unless yaw know otherwise. Several over 30 lbs. I hear from the boat fisherman. Your're right DD, only 30 is pretty slow for a year. Was looking forward to a good fall run but will have to wait until next year I suppose.


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## fishloser (Jul 18, 2002)

pier-legend said:


> ...well close as I can tell it is something like this.
> ..Ocean Crest far and away the most..they were close to 30 before their board shut down...
> .. Kure has just over 20 for the season..again..give or take a couple..
> ..Surf City is at 16..
> ...


Last time I checked, last mont, Yaupon Pier had 83 so far this year!


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## French (Jun 18, 2005)

bogue is probably around 30. Danny Glover has decked probably a third of those.


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## king&strut (Jun 17, 2004)

Man, way to go Yaupon....Go get em Chuck and Zabo...Remember them PL?? What a duo.....Send some kings a little north for us...


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## pier-legend (Jan 14, 2004)

Drumdum said:


> PL,I'm sure you remember when 30 was a good day,not a good yr...


..I fished a 32 king day...got 3...lots and lots of 20-25 king days..
..a lot of old fishermen quit when the pier kings disappeared...I don't really target them any more...If one gets my Tarpon rig June thru early sept....fine...
..come October now days ..its Pompano's.. 
...I miss em...BUT as bad as the crowds can get now just on the news that 1 has been landed..I can't imagine the mob scene there would be on one of those fall 20 king a day WEEKS.. 
...I fished a pier in 1975 that LANDED 511 king mackeral...not counting all the other stuff...511 JUST the Kings


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

pier-legend said:


> ..I fished a 32 king day...got 3...lots and lots of 20-25 king days..
> ..a lot of old fishermen quit when the pier kings disappeared...I don't really target them any more...If one gets my Tarpon rig June thru early sept....fine...
> ..come October now days ..its Pompano's..
> ...I miss em...BUT as bad as the crowds can get now just on the news that 1 has been landed..I can't imagine the mob scene there would be on one of those fall 20 king a day WEEKS..
> ...I fished a pier in 1975 that LANDED 511 king mackeral...not counting all the other stuff...511 JUST the Kings


 In 76,77.78 there were 400 plus each of those yrs on Frisco.. I believe one was at 5 or above it,Ellis (pier manager) had the old records,and he's long since gone from a stroke.. My bud Pat probably has them,he's got a puter for a brain..  I also quit kingin off the piers in 79,the yr after Ellis died,and they hired some arsehole ta run it.. After 79 the numbers dropped drastic,I mean like 5 a yr...  Sad,truely sad..


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## pier-legend (Jan 14, 2004)

..The way I know some of the old numbers is because we had a pier club..and my wife was the record keeper for several years...we still have copies of the pier boards from 1970-1976..... 
..UN_REAL numbers of kings, cobia. amberjacks.....we had a 8 Tarpon landed year... more spanish from 7-10lb. than is now even believable...
...there were fish to catch..and as a result, there was a highly specialized group of fishermen that were just plain good...with fish to "practice" on ...all the pier down here had their "pros"... and I am sure it was like that at Frisco..
....I will admit..no one down here had a clue that the fishing was that good up there!!!..we knew the "banks piers" caught Bigger kings...but we never had a clue of the numbers..
..we always heard about Avon pier as THE PIER on the banks...Frisco got NO pr down here....
...
..we ALWAYS had Tarpon down here...every year there was Tarpon landed on Topsail Piers...I landed one in 1994 that turned out to be the only one landed for that year...but up til then there was always 3-12 landed on these piers....
..cobia, kings, amberjacks, big blues and big spanish, have all took turns being scarce or disappearing all together...when the A-jacks left they never returned..Crevalles have come and gone also...same with the bonito's....
..I remember some single diget king numbers on these piers in the late 80's..
..but until this year the Surf City Pier has "averaged" 100 pier kings a year for the last 3-4 years..this year their at 16....
..Kure has averaged about 65-75...and they make folks quit fishing the 1st of October!!!
..I am still amazed at the turn-out for the pin rigging these days..of course if you have NEVER SEEN THE GOOD OLE DAYS...then your happy with anything that turns the reel over!!!


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

Was in my twentys back then,in my fiftys now,was hoping that in my lifetime I'd see it again,not so sure now.. Cycles are long,but not sure if they're that looooooong..   

Avon was the drum pier,Frisco was the king pier.. Even as far north in the state as we are saw kings caught as late as Thanksgiving..

You're right about the youngens these days. Shame for them,great memorys for us...


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

*Was given this pic by a friend..*

This is a "taste" of what the ole days were like,for all you "youngens" out there,just so you'll know what ya'll missed...   
My bud Pat has a bunch of photos from the ole Frisco days,will try to get him to send me some,but it could be this winter,as he's drummin now...   

Dolphin Pier before she went down...


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## Sea2aeS (Jan 7, 2005)

Man, i dont know what to say after seeing a picture like that..... 

thats incredible... 

Im sure ill never see anything like that.....
thats exactly why a picture is priceless...


could any of you elaborate on the size of some of the bigger kings back then too? i would imagine with the kings that plentiful there were many a 50-60lb smokers decked and a few 70+lb kings.


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

Sea2aeS said:


> Man, i dont know what to say after seeing a picture like that.....
> 
> thats incredible...
> 
> ...


 Actually when there where lots of kings,they were at an avg of 20lbs.. There were quite a few caught in the thirtys and some in the fourtys,but you rarely heard of a fish of fifty lbs.. There is a theory that when all you catch are big kings,the population is on the downswing.. I would just about have to agree,nowadays,I've heard of sixty plus lbs and that is a big king in my book anyway.. 
Many a weekend though,I'd come back with 3 or more kings in the twenty class.. At times you could even catch them on gotchas,that was a treat..


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## pier-legend (Jan 14, 2004)

Drumdum said:


> Actually when there where lots of kings,they were at an avg of 20lbs.. There were quite a few caught in the thirtys and some in the fourtys,but you rarely heard of a fish of fifty lbs.. There is a theory that when all you catch are big kings,the population is on the downswing.. I would just about have to agree,nowadays,I've heard of sixty plus lbs and that is a big king in my book anyway..
> Many a weekend though,I'd come back with 3 or more kings in the twenty class.. At times you could even catch them on gotchas,that was a treat..


DD is right about the big kings....at Topsail..all the piers had 1-50lb king...for their pier record.
....I weighed the one 50lber caught at the Dolphin..
..lots of 15-28 lb.....the island trophy usually went to a couple of 40's..
..we're talking about hundreds of kings caught and every pier might have 1 -40 lb.....
..I have landed 2 over 30 in an afternoon..BUT that was a RARE DAY....
..there was a fellow who landed 2-40's in a day at the Jolly Roger Pier..their still talking about that one too..
...if you can imagine pier pin-rigging when you would wait til you landed your 2nd king of the morning BEFORE you toted them down to weigh and put in the cooler...Yep...been there, done that!!!
...that morning in the picture, we wouldn't tote any down cause it was cold and raining!!! and we didn't want anymore fishermen to come out!!!
...we stacked a few more after that picture too...that was the 1st 2 hrs. of the morning....
..them things were still hitting at dark.....


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## Sea2aeS (Jan 7, 2005)

small or big, thats still incredible... but then again, im only 24 so............


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

Sea2aeS said:


> small or big, thats still incredible... but then again, im only 24 so............


 I was 23 when I started fishing for them.. It's truely a shame those fish aren't here for you to "practice" on as well... 

PL, one of the things I regret in those days was I never took pics.. Had a 7 king day off Jennettes all the fish between 20 to 35lbs,woulda made a heck of a pic.. Ole fishin friend of mine took all his photos,has a huge album.. I went to looking through that thing couple of yrs ago,brought back memorys.. Maybe he'll let me scan a couple from the Frisco days..


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## Rodwatcher (Sep 17, 2003)

Drumdum said:


> This is a "taste" of what the ole days were like,for all you "youngens" out there,just so you'll know what ya'll missed...
> My bud Pat has a bunch of photos from the ole Frisco days,will try to get him to send me some,but it could be this winter,as he's drummin now...
> 
> Dolphin Pier before she went down...


 Kenny, when I took that picture I think there were 9 or 10 on the deck and that was at 7 in the morning, they started hit'n around day light, wind was out of the NE, rainy and cold, best I can remember it wasn't but about 5 or 6 of us the pier, by 10 am there were 23 stacked on the deck. Don't remember how many I caught, got it wrote down somewhere around here, just can't lay my hands on it right now. PL sent me that picture cause I misplace mine some where around here. I think in the spring of 75 their were about 6 of us fishing, the pier manager came out to the end and told us that whoever caught 4 in a row would get a free steak dinner. Well he ended up buying all of us a steak. I think I caught 5 in a row, and the rest of the guys caught 4, thats 25 or so kings in one day in April. The youngens nowadays really don't know what they missed.


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## king&strut (Jun 17, 2004)

PL and DD, maybe another day we will get a fall run like 1997 at the JR. We caught nearly 100 kings in 2 1/2 weeks. Landed 17 in one day. Had 9 on at one time. I was the last one to get hooked up at that moment so I just let my king run to its death and beyond that. All the gaffs were in the water with other kings waiting to come over the rail. I caught 7 that day.......man, what a memory........ then a few years ago we caught another 50-60 in 2 weeks (either 2002 or 2003). Several days of 10 kings landed in one day. I missed the middle of that big run but caught the first one.


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## pier-legend (Jan 14, 2004)

..caught my 1st pier king at 18 yrs. old...Emerald Isle Pier..1969...

...King& Strut...I remember that run at the old Jollys...right after the pier re-opened from Fran...
..seems if there was a Topsail Pier open then they were kings to be caught!!!..that was as close to the "old days" as I have seen since the 70's...

..Rodwatcher..the only guy in the picture NOT fishing was that turon over by the rail....and you taking the pic....

..sounds like a lie..BUT...I have fished a few mornings when you put your bait out..AND HELD THE ROD!!!...I have paid $1.00 for ANY BLUE that came over the rail....and then when you slid him down...HOLD THE ROD....

..(JUST FOR ROD-WATCHER)...the 1st time I ever seen anyone HOLD the rod it was Toby..he slide that thing down and said "Watch this"....WHAM..10 SECONDS...EVERY BAIT GOT IMMEDIATELY BUSTED....mornings like that it would have been "un-real" ifn we had had sufficient bait.....

..DD...I took a LOT of pictures, NOT LIKE I SHOULD HAVE!!!....we got "in-different" with sooo many fish...
..Now days we take pic's of EVERY King or spanish or shark or blow-toad we catch...BUT BACK THEN ..you were in too big a hurry to get another bait out..and a 20lb king won't no big deal...SAD ain't it!!!..we let a lot of kings "dry" in the sun, just laying on the pier.. 

...DD, I am a bit of a historian in regardes to pier fishing and IF you get holt of any of thoes "FRISCO" pics..PLEASE PUT EM ON!!!

...I went to Frisco to "snag flounder" in the early 70's....1st time I was there..some guy was weighing a 42 lb. squidder caught king mack...one of the prettiest rods I had seen at the time...dacron line too...
..WE WHACKED SOME FLOUNDER!!!..never seens so many...
..last few times I went to Frisco Pier, it was for puppy drum..I have "gone thru" that box of polaroids just picking out 50 lb. kings and tarpon!!!!.. IMPRESSIVE...this was the late 90's...

..in the 80's is when some of the better Topsail fishermen started going to Hatteras to "pier fish"...they went in July for the Cobia....and they CAUGHT TOO....one of our guys got a 48 lb. tarpon his 1st trip to either Rodanthe or Avon...they would plan on the full moon in late june or early july..and they came back with all kinds of Cobia and Big King stories.....

..had another Jolly Roger fisherman set the Jennettes pier record for king with a 49 lber in 1988....again..july...don't know if it WAS the record..(he said it was)...but he sure had the king..

...the fishing "died" down here in the 80's and our fishermen started "Vacationing" up there....
..I WANTED a BIG PIER KING and I started that way several times in the 90's...BUT NOT TO FRISCO..we always were headed to Avon or Kitty Hawk or Nags Head pier..
..had fishing buds who have landed 40+ lb kings at Avalon and Kitty Hawk piers...

..the LAST season there were the "predictable patterns" for pin rigging kings at Topsail, was 1981..that was the last "spring run"...."july run"...and "fall run"....
..1982 EVERYTHING CHANGED...so I had 13 great years...
...but I still show up...especially in the summer..
Angelo Depaola and my birthdays are the SAME DAY...he's just got 30 yrs on me!!...we gots the SAME ATTITUTDE!!!


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## chris storrs (Aug 25, 2005)

Chris hollins the kid who got the 68 lb off avon pier landed a 30 lb the same day.. thats a great day for anyone nowadays especially
ryan monroe got that 85 and 90 lb cobe in the same day on avon




this year the count is somewhere around 5 cobia, 0 tarpon(several strikes, all tossed hooks)o kings, 0 jacks, and a few big sharks ...maybe if the pier wasnt in 5feet of water us youngens could put up some more respectable numbers


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## Redhorse (Mar 1, 2006)

*Last night*

I was sitting around the campfire with my buddy Syl, and he brought out some pictures of himself holding pier caught kings from "the old days". I'll bet some of you know him!! He roamed up and down the NC coast for quite a few years. He was telling me about some of the piers that aren't there anymore... . I'll have to get him on here to post some of his pics. He moved back up here and wound up in the Cleveland area fishing for steelhead. Now he's in our club fishing for muskies during the summer when the steelhead aren't running (he got two today...I got skunked).

I love reading these threads. Thanks for sharing your memories...


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

chris storrs said:


> Chris hollins the kid who got the 68 lb off avon pier landed a 30 lb the same day.. thats a great day for anyone nowadays especially
> ryan monroe got that 85 and 90 lb cobe in the same day on avon
> 
> 
> ...


 Chris,I ain't sayin you youngens don't have the ability or that the conditions are wrong,especially on Frisco and Rodanthe this yr,water is deep conditions are perfect.. Got a friend that is the Rodanthe Pierrat.. Red headed feller,like myself  ,anyway,this is the first yr in 20-25 that he hasn't caught a king on the planks... What I'm sayin and what PL is sayin is that there ARE NO inshore kings like there were back then,and may never be again.. 

PL,I've seen days like your talkin when we had to hold the rods.. We had a creek across the street from the pier.. We'd run over with the castnet,catch as many fingers as we could,come runnin back,put em on a single 3/0 livebait hook,pin him up and hang on...  The only bait on this perticular day was sandperch,they were hitting them just as well as the fingers.. There were days when word would get out and there would be rigs from cleanin sink on one side of the pier all the way around to the other one,those wound up being fourty kings or more on the deck days.. 
I remember bringin my helper from work with me one weekend.. Had been bragin about how great the kingin was and finally he decided to come with me.. Well he was using my rigs and rods,had to throw for him,put baits out the whole nine yrds.. The first bait I put in the water was a pinfish on mine,by the time I put his pinfish in the water BOOOMYOW,up in the sky he was with my pinfish.. Dashed for my rod,and he had slashed it and grabed my buds,and was off to the races!!! Turned around and another king at my half a pinfish and was takin off to England as well... We wound up with me 5 and him 3 that weekend.. Not really a good way to start him out,cause after that he EXPECTED a king on every trip...  

We caught kings tarpon jackcravelle cobes but never heard of amberjacks on the planks until the Nags Head and Kitty Hawk piers started getting them.. 
I've met Angello while drummin,but really haven't got to sit and talk with him much,last couple of yrs I've missed him,and one of those yrs I think his wife was sick.. I will make a point of it if I can ever catch him out there,cause he's a h(ll of a good guy..

Sorry for rambling,but the only one I get to talk to about this is Pat and Rodwatcher.. Pat and I fished together so long we already told all the ole storys.. I've heard most of RW'S storys and love em,even though he tells many of em over and over..   It's refreshing stuff to hear...


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## Newsjeff (Jul 22, 2004)

Fellas, great thread.    

I love readin' about the golden days. Don't apologize for ramblin'. What you guys are writin' about is better then a New York Times best seller, IMHO.

Kenny, I hope to see Pat at LIP this Fall. I missed him by a day last week. I heard the snag out there kinda ticked him off ... .


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## fishloser (Jul 18, 2002)

Newsjeff said:


> Fellas, great thread.
> 
> I love readin' about the golden days. Don't apologize for ramblin'. What you guys are writin' about is better then a New York Times best seller, IMHO.
> 
> Kenny, I hope to see Pat at LIP this Fall. I missed him by a day last week. I heard the snag out there kinda ticked him off ... .



I second that, AWESOME thread. This thread has brought all the memories I have from Jeannettes pier and Frisco. I didn't start until the late 70's when a co-worker talk me into going to Frisco with him. My first hookup, a tarpon! Didn't land him but I was hooked for life on pier fishing.

In 1990 I heard of a pier in the Wilmington area that was landing 20 kings a day on a regular basis, so I loaded up my stuff and youngest son and headed down. Got to Wilmington, found a tackle shop, asked a few questions and ended up on Oak Island at Long Beach pier. First day out 27 kings decked and as many lost!!!!! Was pourin rain but who cared.

Feeshin stayed like that for few more years then numbers started goin down. Now its hardly worth the trip down, Long beach is gone, Oceancrest is more hype than fish anymore. That as soon as water temp hits 65 each year I and my sons start the process all over again, Oak island first, then as water warms we we hit topsail, then Frisco, then OBX. It's an addiction! We make day trips, and its 5-7 hrs one way. Wife says we are crazy and maybe we are BUT we are not alone.

PS: I am 58 now and to this day neither of my sons (30 and 39) have driven more than one hr on any the trips. Thats gotta change, lol.


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## fishloser (Jul 18, 2002)

Newsjeff said:


> Fellas, great thread.
> 
> I love readin' about the golden days. Don't apologize for ramblin'. What you guys are writin' about is better then a New York Times best seller, IMHO.
> 
> Kenny, I hope to see Pat at LIP this Fall. I missed him by a day last week. I heard the snag out there kinda ticked him off ... .



I second that, AWESOME thread. This thread has brought all the memories I have from Jeannettes pier and Frisco. I didn't start until the late 70's when a co-worker talk me into going to Frisco with him. My first hookup, a tarpon! Didn't land him but I was hooked for life on pier fishing.

In 1990 I heard of a pier in the Wilmington area that was landing 20 kings a day on a regular basis, so I loaded up my stuff and youngest son and headed down. Got to Wilmington, found a tackle shop, asked a few questions and ended up on Oak Island at Long Beach pier. First day out 27 kings decked and as many lost!!!!! Was pourin rain but who cared.

Feeshin stayed like that for few more years then numbers started goin down. Now its hardly worth the trip down, Long beach is gone, Oceancrest is more hype than fish anymore.But as soon as water temp hits 65 each year I and my sons start the process all over again, Oak island first, then as water warms we we hit topsail, then Frisco, then OBX. It's an addiction! We make day trips, and its 5-7 hrs one way. Wife says we are crazy and maybe we are BUT we are not alone.

PS: I am 58 now and to this day neither of my sons (30 and 39) have driven more than one hr on any the trips. Thats gotta change, lol.


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## king&strut (Jun 17, 2004)

Pollution, different migration routes, weather changes, over fishing, lack of bait or bait holding offshore, etc. have all caused this I hear. I wish I was king fishing back then as well. I remember all of you dudes landing those fish when I was in middle school. I can say I landed a many a big spanish plugging in those days. 5 to 8 pounders were average. One over 8 was a trophy. Now, one over 5 is. I do think if the menhaden keep coming back that will definitely help all the piers. The only reason Ocean Crest catches some is because of the bait. One accidental spill in the Cape Fear River could wipe out that king spot for a long time.


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## Sea2aeS (Jan 7, 2005)

you can thank Omega Proteins for the lack of Kings.  You shoulda seen the kings in their nets up here this summer when they were netting bunker off va beach




better yet, you can thank the politicians for doing nothing to stop them....


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## king&strut (Jun 17, 2004)

Amen to that.......


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## Drumdum (Jan 6, 2003)

Sea2aeS said:


> you can thank Omega Proteins for the lack of Kings.  You shoulda seen the kings in their nets up here this summer when they were netting bunker off va beach
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 Well that could be "part" of the problem,but Imho,say it was dropnetting.. Imported com fishing technology from FLA.. They use to use drones and plainers for catching kings,then they wanted to go on a "getrichquick" binge.. There are numbers from DMF that parallell the yrs 78-82,then the numbers started to decline rapidly. THUS,no more kings.. JMHO... 
As has been stated there are many other possibilities for the cause,but the numbers I saw made me stand up and take note..


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## fisher446 (Aug 7, 2003)

I remember back when i first started king fishing when i was 14 (a hole 6yrs ago lol) Many of the piers would average 70-100 kings a yr. Now your lucky if you catch 10 a yr on the hole pier. Im no pro but ive caught 23 kings in my kingfishin life and i just wish i was alive back in "the day" My big king is 38 1/2lbs and i caught that from the apache pier, thats prob will be my biggest  
THe most i have ever seen in person was something like 15kings cuaght. We were having a touney on OCP a couple years back and they decided to cut it off at 3pm so people caould drive home the sunday afternoon. Around 245 is when they started and in the next couple hours we had 13 on the deck lol I got one little baby 13lb'r, but i will never forget that day with the reels screaming and the gaffs hittin the deck with a nice king on the end.. Also i use to catch tons of spanish over 4lb but now i hardly ever see any that big. More braggin from me, my biggest spanish is 8lb's also from apache. lol... good time good time


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