 On the way out from Rimmer Road at midday we were checked by Niwa who are doing research on recreational catches and they told us few snapper had been caught so far.
This may have been because most people were still fishing at the time.
Sunday
By Sunday the wind was howling, the surf less than a meter and a half and the snapper were in close. I was fishing 13 kilometers north of Rimmer Road with Scott Macindoe and Bill Ross from option4.
On the way back we stopped and chatted to several kitefishers and all had caught fish. The chap in the red tee shirt above had the best catch we saw. He was kite fishing around three kilometers north of Rimmers Road and had a large bin with six or seven
snapper over a kilogram, plenty of gurnard and several kahawai. The fish in the pic above was their biggest but they were doing one more set.
James and Chris Rutter
 We met James Rutter and his dad, Chris about 10 kilometers north of Rimmer Rd.
They had just hauled in their first set of their kite rig and had caught three small snapper and a kahawai when we arrived so I took a pic of James (left) as they were getting ready to reset.
On arriving home I received an e-mail and the two photos (below and bottom) from James letting me know they caught eight snapper, one kahawai and a gurnard for the day.
James said he was really looking forward to seeing his pictures on our web site. (Below) James with their best snapper
Sam Nadan
If you have been getting our newsletters for a while, you will know Sam usually kite fishes with Rob from Paul's Fishing Kites and sends in catch photos by cellphone.
On Sunday we bumped into Sam fishing about six kilometers north of Rimmers Rd and
managed to get a full sized photo of him.
The snapper in the pic below was his biggest and he still had a set to haul in when we left.
Paul Barnes
It was a strange wind on the Sunday, ground wind was 10-15 knots with 25 knots plus above 100 meters altitude. Around 10.30am a series of squalls went through.
Ever since I have had a winch, I have been using a 1500 meter 65kg Dropper Rig powered by a Power Chute Kite (pic right).
 For three years this kite has performed flawlessly, but on Sunday a huge gust of 35 - 40 knots got the better of it and it crashed
after flying perfectly in 25 knots for an hour or so.
We still caught the biggest snapper of the day on that set plus a gurnard, shark and a couple of kahawai.
Complacency had got the better of me over years of trouble free flying (this kite had never even been near the water).
Because of this I did not have the recommended safety trace, recovery line or kite floats on it.
Thank god I had the winch! It took huge effort to recover the kite and I had to pull it 20 meters at a time on the pulse switch to avoid snapping the mainline.
Further down the coast one of our customers reported he was using the a bigger version called a Mega Mouth (photo below) and he had the same thing happen.
He was also flying his kite without safety trace or floats. He lost the huge kite because of it,
despite the fact he was flying it on a 200 pound breaking strain spectra kiteline.
 The lesson is clear, safety traces and floats really work, not only do they protect kites from loss they make it very easy to recover downed kites.
The pic above shows the 130lb dacron recovery line slack, one end is attached to the center keel and the other to the 65kg kiteline.
The three leg bridle the kite is flown from is attached to the kiteline via a 24kg trace.
If the pull from the kite exceeds the 24kg the safety trace snaps, and the kite is easily hauled back by the center keel on the recovery line.
Our Power Sled range of kites are great light wind performers and fly in up to 25 - 30 knots of wind but on this day the wind was just too strong.
We put a Super Kite (a small delta kite) on the dropper rig for our next two sets and it flew perfectly for the rest of the day.
We wound up with three snapper up to 1.5kg, two gurnard, eight kahawai and a small school shark. |
