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Evening winds taper off during the early morning hours to about 5 mph. During the winter months, December through March, winds often come in from the ocean to the shore so most fishing is done the rest of the year.
The coastline of the area ranges from sea level to high cliffs of about 100 feet. The rocky bottom starts out between a few feet to about 50 feet deep and quickly slopes into very deep water only a few hundred yards from shore.
This is where the gamefish like Mahimahi, yellowfin tuna, marlin, and ono patrol. Shore anglers have pulled up these species and others such as walu, short-nosed spearfish, jack cravelle, amberjack, aku, kawakawa, and the ever-present shark.
Fishing Report from Albert Nakaji
The Catch
Three of us fished with one of Paul's flexiwing kites at one of our favorite fishing spot in Hawaii in December and we all took turns pulling up different fish. I pulled up the first Mahimahi (some refer to it as a dolphin fish) and my fishing partner,
Debbie Ishado, caught the second one.
It was her birthday weekend so that made a nice present. Pic right It was only the second time she had been fishing and she was not yet quite accustomed to handling the gear but she did well.
Her rig was a 9/0 Penn Senator fishing reel fitted to a modified stand-up boat rod, filled with several hundred yards 100 lb. test braided polymer line. The limited stretch of the line helps to pull in the fish itself, rather than just fight the stretch.
It also is a tremendous aid in signaling strikes.
It took Debbie about 20 minutes to land the fish since we wanted to make sure that the mahimahi was very tired and couldn't jump when we brought it in to shore, as this is when many fish are lost.
The fish made several exciting jumps after the initial strike and then resorted to a fiesty surface fight the rest of the way. When the fish got close enough, we used what we call a slide gaff which is attached to the line, slid down, and pulled
back up to gaff the fish. This allows one to gaff fish from very high cliffs, provided the attached rope is long enough.
That same day, Debbie also pulled up a large barracuda and a large blue bone stickfish, both of which were tossed back. These fish were caught during the day, but something large broke the mainline on this 24kg rig and we lost everything, hence the
recent order for a replacement flexiwing kite.
The wind during the trip varied from about 10 to 15 mph, gusting to about 20 on the day. The next day, another mahimahi was hooked up and Marcus, my other fishing buddy on the trip, took the rod and brought it up.
He caught the fish in the photo on the left.
It was his first ever Mahimahi as well. Of the three Mahimahi which were caught, I think Debbie's fish looked about the biggest. We didn't weigh them but the images give an idea of their size.
The image of the sea below is looking down from the cliff top. Although hard to see, it shows one of the hooked Mahimahi and the float bottle under the kite. The fish is greenish in this pic and somewhat blends in with the water.
The float is the orange thing in the upper right hand section (it's actually a soft drink bottle with the orange label still attached). If you look at the float, you will notice that it is in the air and hanging down, and not floating on the water surface.
This is because the kite, in conjunction with the angle of the cliff, was assisting in lifting the fish up and clear of the reef.
The is another advantage that using a kite has over some other more traditional techniques.
In addition to using a fishing kite I have used inflated plastic rubbish bags to send the lines out. These present several complications even though they are quite inexpensive.
Most people in the area continue to use this method, primarily because bags are so readily available and cheap. It has, unfortunately, become somewhat of a bone of contection between the land-based anglers and boaters who sometimes get their props and
prop shaft tangled with the lines and bags that sometime break loose and/or deflate.
Especially during periods of poor visibility, the boaters have a hard time seeing the bags (particularly the dark colored ones), are unaware of the thin line which the bags are tied to, and run over them with their boats. This causes grief not only
for the boater but for the shore anglers as well.
Another disadvantage of the trash bags is that since they are in the water, the fishing line they are attached to and the inflated bag are both very affected by the currents. This causes a lot of uncontrollable drift.
The traditional way of dealing with this has been to add more bags so that the wind will overcome or minimize ocean currect effects. The disadvantage, however is that adding more bags increases the total pull on the line and makes retrieval increasingly
difficult with each added bag.
Too, strange as it may seem, sometime fish will attack the bags and and puncture them. The line then needs to be retrieved all the way back, another bag set up, and sent out again.
Especially in cliff areas, sending the bags out can be difficult due the to air eddy currents which causes the bags to come back to shore right in front of the cliff face.
The bags get launched, fly out a bit, fall and start heading back towards the cliffs - and stay there. I've personally experienced trying to get a bag out for over 45 minutes before finally giving up and waiting for better winds.
The kite can reduce or eliminate all of these disadvantages. It gives a lot more control over the direction and positioning of the line and bait when the wind is not quite right, it's a lot easier to launch, and there's no worry about deflated bags
and the problems they present.
These are not usually very critical considerations at Ka Lae since the wind blows pretty much straight offshore, but it can makes things a lot easier when the current is particularly strong - and it does get very strong indeed.
Additionally, on days when the wind is light, the flexiwing kite can get the bait out much faster than the trash bags. This keeps the bait away from the smaller reef fish which are too small to be caught but will eat all of the bait before it gets out
to the fishing area.
It's typical to see a whole school of fish attacking the bait as it is being slowly pulled out by the trash bags, and they will actually sometimes even stop the movement until all of the bait is gone. Traditionally, different tricks have been used to
discourage this (I.E., wrapping the bait is either plastic or paper bags, throwing stones at the bait to scare away the fish, etc).
They do work, most of the time, but they are not foolproof and add another chore to the list of already too many things which need to be done.
Of course, anyone using Paul's Flexiwing Kites already knows all of these advantages.
The photo above shows the area that we fish regularly and the rig that I used before using the kite. Except for the useless bell and two trash bags, the rig is the same as that I use now. The useless bell has been replaced with a more effective
electronic alarm to signal when a fish is on, and most importantly, the trash bags are now replaced with a flexiwing kite flying above the float.
The Rig The fishing rig we use is a single dropper connected under a kite. The kite is flown from a large capacity reel, our smallest rig is a 9/0 Penn Senator fishing reel fitted to a stand up boat rod and our biggest is a 14/0 Penn Senator on a heavy
duty stand up rod.
The dropper line carries a single baited circle hook on the end and a one litre float is attached anywhere up to 50 meters above the hook. It depends on the type of fish we're trying to catch.
In all honesty, the flexiwing presents many advantages which makes its use an attractive method for getting bait out to the fish. I would be remiss to not mention its major drawback: Kites do crash. In our case, this is most often due to our own inattentiveness
when the wind dies down, but it rarely also happens when one of the rubber bands which is used to hold the wings breaks.
Clearly, the solutions are to pay better attention to what's going on, and to also make sure the rubber bands are in good shape before launch. Additionally, adding balloons for safety flotation to the kite, as suggested in Paul's website, provides a
measure of safety should the kite manage to take a swim.
Conclusion Although I have been using the flexiwing for a while now, I have not yet perfected a system which I feel totally comfortable with yet. Like anything else, it takes time, thought, trial and experimentation to get everything right.
Clearly, the kite is not applicable to every situation, but it does offer a potentially very effective tool in ones fishing arsenal. I will continue to use and experiment with the Flexiwing, and Paul's other neat kites (I recently used the Inflatable
for very light evening winds with good success).
I have tried and lost more different kites than I can count, everything from kiddies toys to very expensive units. I have also watched other people use traditional fishing kites.
Paul's Flexiwing has the best thought-out design without exception, and its range of application is far greater than any other I know of.
As I'm able to find the opportunity, I'll hopefully be able to send more images of my catches and fishing trips.
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