Florida Flounder Gigging Report - Kevin Cooke

The surrounding photos are of one of our best nights yet with our new PFK Flounder Gigging Lights which we purchased from your website recently

Above: Here's an unusual catch from our waters, it's a Cubera Snapper

We bought your three light set and have found gigging with all three lights is best for us.

The biggest flounder is 26 inches and 8 lbs and the other one is a cubera snapper and he was 22 inches and 5 pounds.

Our previous best night was 29 sheepshead (the striped fish) and one flounder we gigged from a boat.

That catch only took four hours.

We gigged between 9pm and 1am.

High tide is the best time for flounder gigging in our spots.

In the future i will be purchasing more lights as well!

Photo Below: A whopping 8 pound flounder taken with PFK Flounder Lights

Uretiti Kite Fishing Trip By Morgan Barnes

Having been fishing just off the mouth of the Waipu river not long ago with a boat longline I knew there were fish about.

It was a late start to the day as I got on to the beach around 2pm. By the time I was at the spot I wanted (about three quarters of the way from the entrance to the Waipu river mouth) and had the gear ready to set up it would have been close to 2:30pm.

The wind was straight offshore at around 15-20 knots. I decided to use the super kite from my 50kg dropper rig as it is very stable in this wind range.

The first set I baited up with fresh mullet, this is usually one of the best baits you can use. However, after the first set, all I caught was one yellowtail.

These fish make fantastic bait if you can get them this fresh so I cut him in to strips and baited up my 10 hooks.

This set went out to around 800-900 metres for around an hour while I had a walk down the beach to see how other fishers were getting on.

While I was there I saw 3 people using kontiki's. Two electric and one bag. From what I could see, not much was happening with any of them.

The guy closest to me had a Kentiki with a homemade winch that unfortunately failed while I was talking to him. Vinnie and I gave him a hand to haul in as he was there with only his young children.

He was running 25 hooks around 1200m offshore using salted mullet for bait. After trying to fix his wiring and getting his winch working, he pulled in one snapper around 32cm, and decided to pack up and go home.

By now it would have been an hour since setting our gear so we returned up the beach to haul in. The yellowtail certainly did the trick. From 10 hooks set we pulled in 7 nice snapper ranging in size from 28-43cm.

We re-baited with squid this time and emptied some of the contents of the milk bottle out since the wind had died down. After setting for around half an hour we returned just 4 undersized snapper, all lip hooked and easily released thanks to the Target Hooks.

The final set was also with squid and as dusk approached I decided to set this one a bit closer to shore, around 500 metres out.

Vinnie Mishra with one of the bigger snapper caught on the day. He was particularly impressed with the performance of the floating bead traces as all the bigger fish were taken on them

This final set for the day was out for just half an hour and it turned out to our best ever! A fish on every hook! We pulled in nine snapper from 25 to 35cm, and one large kahawai. Not a bad days fishing all told, returning home with 14 snapper and a nice fat kahawai.

Morgan Tests New PFK Salted and Scaled Mullet

I Decided to go out for an early evening fish to try out our new Long life Salted Mullet Fillets which we now have available in store and online.

These fillets come scaled and ready to go, no more blunt knives from cutting through the scales, and no mess! Vacuum packed and long life, this bait is ideal for anyone wanting to get a wider variety of fish.

Both snapper and gurnard love mullet, so you have a lot better chance of getting a good feed when there are fewer snapper about than when using squid. These two beauties were taken on my first set with the new bait, along with two slightly smaller snapper, two mid sized gurnard and three decent sized kahawai.

I had put the salted mullet on fluro yellow floating bead traces, a new addition to our ready made traces, that seem to work fantastically well.

After hauling in, I had a look at the fluro yellow beads and found little teeth marks in them, proving that they not only keep your baits off the bottom, but also act as a visual attractant for the snapper.

First Kite Fishing Attempt - Clinton Okkers

Kite Fishing by Clinton Okkers

A buddy of mine had this 65kg dropper rig sitting in storage for 10 years or more, so I took the opportunity to try it out. After taking it in to the shop for a quick check by Rob, I learned that this rig was among the first ever made in store. On Rob’s advice, I simply replaced some of the smaller components and it was ready to go.

I’ve been a couple of times with it so far with varied success, but this time is by far the best day ever.

While fishing spot X, I baited up with fresh mullet. There was a gentle 7 knot southeast wind blowing in the morning that changed around mid afternoon to a 6 knot easterly.

The current was very strong so, combined with the light winds, it made for difficult fishing. I was up for the challenge!

This particular 12 hour day was extremely exhausting for me and two other friends (Luke & Sed) who went ballistic when we hauled in this beauty (see photo below). Boy, do I need to invest in an electric winch!

Besides this beauty, we landed two snapper at 37cm, one gurnard at 40cm, and two large hammerhead sharks that we returned to the sea where they belong.

Cornwallis Fishing Report - Adam Walters

Nonetheless, we were keen to give it a try, and hit the beach around 12pm. Low tide wasn't until just before 1pm, so this gave us some time to explore. We chose an area at the Southern end of the beach, a few hundred metres south of the wharf.

Our rig was a 65kg dropper, powered by a Nighthawk. We had difficulty launching the kite due to various wind shadows and turbulence caused by the landmass behind. This also meant we had to settle for a tack of around 15 degrees, as anymore weight/drag on the wing made it impossible to get the kite into the air without it diving off the wind.

Our fist set was 10 hooks, baited with [frozen] baby squid on double bead floating traces. We only put a small amount of weight on the hook section, hoping to clear any snags. No such luck...at around 200-300m offshore the bottle float suddenly stalled. We tried letting more line out, but the kite just didn't have enough grunt to pull it free. It was left to sit for about 30-40 minutes before hauling in. Much to our surprise, it returned with little effort, and no gear was lost.

We scratched our heads, and decided to launch the skyhook to hopefully pull through whatever had stalled our gear. We managed a slightly better tack on this set, put out 15 hooks baited with [frozen] mullet, all on double bead floating traces. All seemed to be going well, until the bottle float stopped again - this time at around 300m offshore. Once again we let the gear fish for 30-40 minutes and hauled it back again, all our line/traces etc. still in tact but this time one of the hooks pulled in a clump of mussels weighing in at approximately 2-3kg!

By now the tide was coming in, and we knew the channel was rising in depth, which meant greater chances of some larger boats cruising past. We decided on one last set, and that using the 'Running Float' method was the best option. Skyhook down, a final 10 hooks, baited with a mixture of squid and mullet, which set smoothly and cleared any snags. Before long we were in the channel, keeping a close watch for any boats. Unfortunately the running float method didn't work too well this time, whether we didn't have enough weight on the hook section or the current was too strong - I'm not sure, and most of our baits probably sat floating near the surface.

After another 45mins, it was time to leave and all our hooks returned with the baits untouched. I don't think we'll return to Cornwallis again. We chatted with a couple of local residents on our way off the beach who seemed to think the area hadn't fished well lately, except the odd Kingy taken on a live bait off the wharf. We donated our haul of mussels to them, much to their delight, and headed home for the day.

Muriwai Mayhem

We received this email from a concerned customer on the 15th of February.

I went fishing on Saturday with my 14 year old son at Muriwai, I was 10km north of Rimmers Road setting my Flexiwing Kite for the second set when a Burgundy Toyota Four Runner 4wd drove through my gear, pulling 500 plus metres of 36kg Braid off my TLD 50 2 speed and after pushing the reels drag right up to stop losing more Braid braking my game Rod, I lost my Flexiwing, Skyhook, and 500 metres of line as well as braking my rod.This guy was dangerous, we were about 200 metres up the beach from another kite fisherman and he had his 7-8 year old son who had to run to get away from this guy. We were only two metres from the shiny sand so we weren't’t along way up the beach, and his mate who was following him managed to go around the guy down the beach and around us.

This guy was traveling at least 80km’s an hour and was towing a trailer with three motorbikes and as I tried to wave him down he simply gave me the fingers and kept going. I then got in my 4wd and followed this guy up the beach he was going so fast that I never saw him for the next 38km’s as I only managed to catch him at the soft sand part of the beach after he had stopped so I could get his registration number.

When I approached the guy he knew straight away why I was there and said I’m sick of you kite fisherman who think you own the beach, I said to him that he had plenty of room to go around me and he replied that it wasn’t his problem, Now I am 6’2 and I weigh over 120kg’s and this guy was maybe 6ft and lucky if he was 100kg’s and he was on something he wanted to fight and carried on like real asshole. I simply told him that I would be reporting him to the police and he needed to sort his stuff out.

When I drove back to my son around an hour after leaving to chase this mad driver, the chap who was fishing just down from me had come up to see if he was alright - and had stayed with him while I was away - what a great guy, he was a witness who I could use when reporting this to the police.

This was reported straight away at the Henderson Station and the female officer who took the statement immediately contacted Helensville and Kumeu constables to get someone to go up the beach and catch this guy.

I am letting you guys know so you can warn other kite fisherman when I set my gear up I always have a safety cone like the ones you see at road works and I fish as close to the shiny sand as I safely can as most other kite fisherman do, this guy will kill someone if he is not stopped so you may want to put something in your newsletter so other fisherman can look out for him.

Editors Note:

It’s always sad to hear stories like this, especially when children are involved.

Unfortunately it is not the first time and all we can really do is try to ensure a sensible beach etiquette is followed by users to help avoid tensions like this from occurring.

While we can’t be responsible for other’s actions and beliefs, we can do our best to steer clear of them.

This could be a good time to remind kite fishers and kontiki users of suggested beach safety etc:

Read the article on beach safety tips.

If you see someone driving dangerously on the beach ring *555 or take their license plate number and report them to the police as soon as possible.

Dargaville Kingfish - Barry Southgate

I caught this 18 kg kingfish just out from my batch at Glinks Gully on the morning of Saturday, 30th of April on my torpedo, using 100 lb trace with Paul's Kites long line hooks and red floating beads, which I purchased through the PFK shop the week before.

Upon setting the torpedo out, my reel raced off as the hooks were passing through the breakers. Not knowing what it could be, I set my torpedo 1200 metres from shore and left it out for 20 minutes. Upon retrieval I thought I could see a large shark, but with more line coming in my wife and I were ecstatic to see such a beautiful specimen in the shallows. Thanks for your great advice and products.

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