King George whiting are caught from southern New South Wales to Western Australia. This species is not the biggest, meanest or hardest fighting fish in southern waters but, when it comes to popularity, this humble epicurean delight is near the top of most anglers' lists.

Big King George whiting are sometimes called kidney slappers because of the de-hooking action. Whiting are slippery and some anglers hold them close while retrieving the hook, which means the tail of a 40cm-plus fish may be slapping against your kidneys. It's fair to say that many southern saltwater anglers are gluttons for punishment, looking forward to the kidney slaps because when that happens they are catching big whiting.

Victorian whiting anglers look across the border at South Australia with envy. A big whiting in Victoria is in the 44cm to 48cm range and weighs 650 to 800g. Bigger specimens to 55cm are caught, albeit only occasionally, and I did hear of a pair of fish caught off Torquay that weighed 1.36kg.

In SA, whiting can grow to more than double this size. Places like Foul Bay on the Yorke Peninsula are famous for their 50cm-plus whiting.

In Port Phillip Bay and Western Port, the biggest whiting are taken at the southern ends of the bays. Sadly, the fish are on their way out. To understand why you have to look at the whiting’s life cycle: King George whiting have drifted into these bays from South Australia as zoo plankton, and stayed here as juveniles. When they reach sexual maturity, about 40cm long, the whiting move to the bottom of the bays in preparation for journeying westwards to the spawning grounds where their life began. It is while they are migrating through Bass Strait and along the southwest coast past Warrnambool and Portland that some of the biggest Victorian specimens are caught.

The best big whiting fishing I have experienced in Victoria was pre-dawn in the Lonsdale Bight, below the Cottage by the Sea. I fished with former charter skipper Mark Rushton and our bag of fish went from about 35cm to 47cm.

We were anchored close to shore and our first fish came almost as soon as the first bait went in. Sitting at the back of breakers on a beach at night was an eerie experience: waves were barely discernible in the darkness; a white fringe sometimes glimpsed was followed by the crash, boom of the wave collapsing on to the beach.

Never mind. The fishing was constant as the whiting went on about their business of feeding. Every fish that came aboard was full of sandworms. There was no great secret in hooking these whiting. Feel a bite, move the bait slightly and the chances were the take would be hard with the hook coming up fast into the jaw of the fish. Big whiting take baits with more certainty than smaller fish, which can be finicky and more inclined to suck than swallow.

The rig used was basic. The sinker was running from a leader of about 15cm long with sinker size varying with tide. Braid line has reduced the need for super heavy sinkers in the strong current, but we used six ounces in the strongest current, down to four ounces when we moved inshore and the current wasn’t as severe. Leader length was about a rod length (about two metres) and we worked solid tip rods.

Hooks were size 4, as snapper are always a chance at this time of year and smaller, lighter gauge hooks often pull on a decent red. Since then I have preferred the No. 4 stainless hooks for much of my whiting fishing and sometimes go as big as 1/0 when using octopus (suicide) pattern hooks.

Fresh squid takes a lot of beating as whiting bait. Pipi, mussel, bass yabbie, and sandworm also attract bites. To get the best out of squid take a large strip and pound it with a meat tenderiser so that the sticky juices are seeping out from the flesh. Tipping the bait with a piece of fresh mussel can be worthwhile. If you hook a whiting and it gets off, change the bait as whiting often ignore bait that has been chewed.

When it comes to finding whiting, look for seagrass beds interspersed with sand holes. Alternatively, look for a fleet of boats gathered over this sort of terrain. School sized whiting, that is fish in the 27-35cm sizes, are typically most numerous in 4-8m of water and bigger whiting are more common in deeper waters up to 12m. This is not a fixed rule, but a generalisation. Moreover, whiting feed best when there is current so if you are fishing an area and the whiting bite stops, check the tidal flows as they often go off the bite when the current stops, and come back on again when the tidal streams starts.

TACKLE

Rod and reel choice for whiting isn’t a high tech issue. Whiting are a simple fish and the simplest of threadline outfits will suffice. However, it is nice to work a balanced outfit and you always seem to catch more when you do. My preference is a quiver tip rod, in the 3-4kg line class coupled with a size 2500 Rovex Aureus threadline reel.

Typically, most quiver tip rods are about 2-2.7 metres long and the action is light due to the sensitive tip, but you can load them up and fight a good fish through the tubular glass section once a fish is hooked. These rods are superb when the fish are finicky or you are using small sinkers, as the ultra-sensitive tip is an extreme bite indicator. Another advantage in using these rods is when fishing in the wind. You can cast your bait, and then tighten the line. As you do so, the tip will bend under the load. Unlike other rods, the line stays tight in the wind and you can easily spot a bite—either by the rod straightening as the line goes slack, or else by the small twitches on the rod tip.

In deeper water with strong currents, you may want to add more lead. This can unbalance a light outfit. An alternative is to spool your reel with braid, which is thinner than monofilament, and this allows you to keep the sinker size down. An advantage of braid is that you will more easily feel a bite when holding the rod with a finger on the line. In my experience hook-up rates increase due to the lack of stretch in this line material. An important point when employing braid is set the reel drag to suit the rod and not the line. A heavier outfit is a good idea for fishing such strong currents, something like a Rovex Aureus 3500/4500 matched with a Rovex Air Strike rod.

A golden rule of whiting fishing is to ensure the bait is below the sinker. It doesn’t matter whether you use a running sinker or a fixed sinker rig, ensure the leader length takes the bait past the sinker. Most whiting rigs are variations of the paternoster style, and the best whiting anglers I know prefer single leader rigs, and use No. 4 to No. 6 octopus or baitholder pattern hooks. Many anglers place small red beads or thin red plastic tubing on their leaders near the hook claiming this increases their catch.