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kite fisherman.
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- 17/05/2012 at 3:54 am #7189
kite fisherman
ParticipantBeen kite fishing Conway Flats and Taumutu this week and only caught dogfish.I take it there’s other fish around this time of year?
I am finding that the shingle beaches give my gear hell,is that the norm?
Plus the beaches in canterbury along with the fickle winds make kite fishing a big challenge,hoping that when i try the kite up north in sept to the Bay of Islands i won’t have the same problems.
Please help me with some suggestions,look forward to any comments.
17/05/2012 at 4:21 am #20969fishforpot
ParticipantI spent a few years kite fishing not long after the craze began …..
Nov – March are pretty much the only months worth fishing down here ….. maybe a few weeks either side ……all turns to custard outside those months …
I found the bottom longline was too hard to work with ……especially with the rips etc we get
The dropper rig was the go , but it needs loads of weight to keep it anchored …. kite just doesnt stop pulling huh …..
Elephant fish seem pretty timid and they didnt grab a moving bait , so 1 fish per set was the norm , and with the kite constantly moving the rig about , its hard going ..It’s way more fun , and you catch way more fish if you use a rod off the beach , first few hours of daylight , and the last few hours , or in the dark of course ….
I did catch a few fish off the west coast , water is warmer over there , but once again , the surf and rips are an issue …
I’d give serious consideration to changing your name to Rod Fisherman …….kites are a north island toy , and have been way way superceeded by the ocean raping Torpedoes
17/05/2012 at 5:43 am #20970kite fisherman
ParticipantMany thanks for your comments.I’m glad you had problems as well.I will keep trying to get it right,the plan is to take it north to the Bay of Islands in sept,hiring a campervan for two weeks,park up anywhere and fish.
17/05/2012 at 12:41 pm #20972yellowfin
ParticipantI have fished a kite rig at Birdlings Flat and South Rakaia quite a few times in the past. We would mostly catch dogfish, tope, rig and the odd sevengiller on bottom longlines. At times we would get good catches of kahawai. Occassionally elephantfish around Christmas time. I lost a kite once on the reef at Nape Nape. The other half of the line still being pulled by the kite was headed towards the Chathams. I wonder if anyone has experienced loosing a torpedo while making a set? I guess it must happen sometimes.
17/05/2012 at 6:18 pm #20974fishforpot
ParticipantDid you ever fish with David Botino Alan ?? he was a character …I still have some of his gear in the garage somewhere …
17/05/2012 at 7:45 pm #20975kite fisherman
ParticipantI bought my first kite off Dave Bottino about 20 yrs ago,very nice guy,he lived opposite Lancaster Park main gates in the old days of Lancaster Park.I don’t know where he is now or if he’s still alive.I still have a bit of his gear in my garage,Electric fence reel with line,plus the hand spool with line,the best thing i had that he made was the little kite that you sent out on the mainline to a stopper up the line,it took your hooks and sinkers out from your fishing reel on your rod and dropped the gear out 200plus mtrs out.
I take it yellow fin must be Alan,i have just bought his ebook and in it he shows Dave’s little kite to send your gear out.17/05/2012 at 9:03 pm #20976yellowfin
Participant
Yes I knew Dave Bottino “back in the day.” Dave was a great guy and I remember well a day we spent at Birdlings Flat testing some of his line-climbers. The line climbers were also tremendous fun to take down to the park with the kids. We would make miniature parachutists and load them into the sinker bucket. The kids would take great delight in running to catch them as they floated towards the ground. These devices, though a bit unusual, work surprisingly well for surfcasting – though obviously the wind needs to be offshore. Three of four surfcasters can fish with just one kite. The climber looks complicated but the design was excellent being both strong and yet light weight. Dave’s gear was well made because 20 years later it still functions perfectly. I was told that Dave returned to Italy to live many years ago.
[b:14h5nll7]How the Line Climber Works[/b:14h5nll7]
For those who have never seen one of these before it works as follows: You first send your delta kite up into the sky as usual. Then the line-climber is attached to the kite line. The device is “armed” by bending the thin yellow fibreglass rod and clipping the swivel into the “trigger.” Next you place the sinker from your surfcasting rod, with your three baited hooks dangling in the air, into the “bucket” with the green tape around it. Then open the bail arm on your surfcasting reel. Now you release the line climber and the wind blows it up the kite line until it hits a knot which “pulls” the trigger causing the “spring loaded rod” to straighten tipping the sinker bucket upside down and your sinker falls into the sea several hundred metres offshore – depending on how far you let the kite out. The really good thing about it is that the line-climber once triggered no longer catches the wind and so slides back to you on the beach ready to be loaded and re-armed again and again without the need to bring the kite back in.18/05/2012 at 8:19 pm #20981fishforpot
ParticipantI used one of these kite late at night in the back yard when living on 1.5 acres in Parklands , dropping empty beer cans onto the roof of a cops house way way down the road lmao …..I’d love to been a fly on the wall …..
I had the early model , quite heavy material etc ….
If anyone wants to try a similar method , a smaller wind sock type kite with a clothes peg as a dropper trigger works quite well …
You run the mainline from the reel thru one leg of the peg and attach to the other leg ….. a line attached to the first leg runs thru the opposte leg to the kite …..Id advise having a safety loop around this setup in case the setup breaks ….you wrap the pinching end of the peg in rubberband , the number of loops is dictated by the wind strengthUse your surfcaster , with a ledger rig setup but put an extra dropper loop above the top hook , this clips inside the peg ….and send it seaward …..
Simply give the kiteline a sharp tug to briefly open the peg , dropping you baits into the sea as far out as you dare send it …… the advent of braid would be perfect as kiteline for this setup …..
David and I were experimenting with upside down parashutes hanging on the kiteline last time I saw him …. they actually pull downwards , and counter the lift of the kite …. this way we could restrict how high the casting / sock kite would climb … we were playing with valcro rather than safety lines as well ….all ideas we were keeping from that idea pinching Dave Barnes from up North ….
Someone might get some ideas from the above ….have fun
19/05/2012 at 7:23 am #20986Miliwolf
ParticipantHave often thought about using one of these kites to try and take a bait several hundred meters offshore, in the hope of catching a school grouper or something interesting… but its a very long way to wind a small doggie back in from. I reckon most of the fish are feeding in the surf disturbance area anyway, so have kind of lost interest in the idea.
yellowfin
19/05/2012 at 10:37 am #20988yellowfin
Participantyou should have gone and taken it
19/05/2012 at 11:30 am #20989Miliwolf
Participant19/05/2012 at 11:35 pm #20990elmo22
Participantthat would be wrong lol were was your kayak when that was stuck out there milwolf a free bee
20/05/2012 at 12:31 am #20991Miliwolf
Participantelmo22
20/05/2012 at 5:44 am #20993yellowfin
Participant
Here is a picture of another of Dave Bottino’s line climbers. This is the heavier version for use in very strong winds.
Very interesting about the lost, and retrieved, torpedo. I guess quite a few have probably been lost over the years.
I once watched as a bloke launch his torpedo towing a long-line at South Rakaia. The sea was quite flat with hardly any surf. The torpedo would not have been 10m from shore when it dived beneath the surface. The orange flag on the top disappeared like a submarine periscope. The bloke had a look of utter shock on his face declaring it had never done that before. He was certain the line must have broken. After a very long minute or so it popped up about 50m along the beach. There must have been a very powerful rip that had carried it along the beach instead of taking it straight out off the beach. Not what he had expected considering how calm the sea was!20/05/2012 at 11:47 am #20999Miliwolf
ParticipantThe orange flag survived on the torpedo off Blind River for a couple of days, but it was missing the last time I saw it. It was quite a amusing sight watching it bobbing away out there.
A few years back I remember a short article in the newspaper about a guy who lost his new expensive torpedo the first time he used it. Somebody found it a few km’s along the beach and had returned it. A lot must go missing, even more must get forgotten about in the back of garages after the owner get sick of unhooking dozens of dogfish…
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