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For the general populace, November is the month for elections, Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping — hopefully, in that order of importance. But for those of us that are afflicted with fishing fever, it is also the prime month for catching king mackerel — a.k.a. kingfish.

There is probably no species of fish, for the offshore angler, that gets the blood running as quickly and the passion running as deeply as the mention of the tenacious kingfish.

The ultimate pelagic marauder, the king mackerel, is generally plentiful over wide expanses of ocean waters and provides the angler with a legendary tussle and a passable take home for the table.

For those who long to fish tropical and sub tropical waters for big targets, the kingfish has become a centerpiece of piscatorial desire. The publications and the media spray us with propaganda as to the slashing toughness of the kingfish and suddenly anglers everywhere have their throats go dry and hands itch with contagious cases of “king fever”.

And November is the month they show up here for a brief stopover on their annual fall migration south. The length of their stay is controlled by the amount of bait in our waters that they will try to totally consume.

So, no wonder that, in November, the charter fleet gets calls that usually start with one question: “You guys getting any kings down there?”

That’s exactly the call I got a week or so ago.

The callers were a couple of guys from up north involved in a business meeting in Sarasota in which they were loosing interest — or should we say they were getting the dry throats and itchy hands.

We confirmed that the kingfish were definitely here in goodly numbers and were providing top drawer action. You could sense the heavy breathing even on the phone as they plotted an excuse to miss a couple of sessions at the meeting and book a morning charter. They definitely had a fatal case of “king fever”.

The gods were smiling at them on their appointed morning. After their early nail biting, harrowing trip down the interstate, they got a pleasant surprise as they arrived here, with a morning of light winds and relatively flat seas.

After explaining the day’s game plan of first rounding up some blue runners for bait, we would set up and troll open waters in the eight to nine mile range where scads of bait were active and so were the murderous kings. They nodded instinctively really without listening.

As it would unfold, they were much more interested in what everyone else was doing.

First stop was once of the sunken barges — how did it sink?— where we used tipped jigs to catch some nice size blue runners for bait. The guys liked that action on light tackle and I had a hard time getting them to stop. “How do you know we have enough bait?”

We pressed on.

We passed a gaggle of boats at the Sea Buoy that were netting or sabuki rigging thread herring. They were fascinated with the action. “Why didn’t we get those instead of the runner fish?”

At about four miles out they saw several boats drifting some rubble. “What are they doing?” they asked. I explained that they were drifting the rubble fields hoping to catch some snapper and maybe even a grouper. “Why can’t we do that after we catch our limit of kingfish?”

Then finally we reached the area where bait pods were everywhere and again our stalwarts noted three or four boats anchored close together a mile off. “What are they doing?” they asked once more. I explained that they were anchored on a sunken vessel and fishing for smaller kingfish and mackerel. “Why don’t we do that?”

Patiently explaining that the bigger kings were on open water and that they had specifically asked for big fish seemed to hold them at least for the time being.

We deployed two baits. One was a 10 inch blue runner, set on wire with a stinger hook rigged aft of the dorsal (“What’s that second hook for?”) that we put on a 30 pound rig and attached to the downrigger that would run at twenty feet. The second was the same rig that we set up under a small planer (“What’s that contraption do?”) that we would run not deeper than ten feet.

We started the troll. Now there wasn’t a fish or a bird or anything as far as the eye could see — just nice flat water punctuated with patches of nervous water above the many bait schools. There was no evidence that there were any big fish anywhere.

That agitated the two of them. “So, where’s the fish? Shouldn’t we be seeing some fish or something? How do you know anything is here? Maybe we should go back on the reef with those other guys.”

“Patience, guys” was all I could reply. I could see the bait pods all over the fishfinder and evidence of streaking major size fish.

We went ten minutes without a bump and they both became more antsy.

Then the moment of action arrived as both rods went off simultaneously.

I wish I had filmed what followed. As major kingfish headed to the horizons, our two skeptical anglers put on a show worthy of an Emmy at least.

There were crossed lines; there were cramped hands and arms; there were words that even I had never heard before and finally there were two gargantuan kingfish alongside trying to cut whatever they could with those razor sharp teeth.

After a couple of photos they had me take of their suspended fish half draped in the water, we resuscitated the big kings and cut ‘em loose.

The stalwarts needed resuscitating too as they collapsed in the afterglow of landing two such nice kings. When I started to re-rig for another go at the kings, they waved me off.

“We’ve had enough, captain ... Let’s go home.”

We set course for the sea buoy and blissfully there were no questions on the way home — great memories took their place.

•••

Name: King Mackerel

In season: In our area spring through late fall.

Florida Regulations: 24 inch fork limit. Bag limit 2 per person per day. Reduced to one when Federal waters are closed to kingfish harvest.

Habitat: Schooling fish with reputation for great fight. Shows up here on spring run north. Common to catch in 20 range. State record is 90.