PAUL'S FISHING KITES NEWSLETTER
36
Posted 24 October 2002
Weather
It is looking like Labour weekend will be great for kitefishing
on the east coast. The forecast over the whole country is for moderate
westerlies on Saturday and Sunday with a possibility of a south
to southwesterly wind shift by Monday.
The schooling snapper are in close on the east coast from North
Cape to the Bay of Plenty. Paul's top spots for the weekend are
Pakiri Beach, Te Arai Point, Waipu to Whangarei Heads and further
north Tokerau Beach.
Now that the snapper are in great catches of schooling fish should
persist until March, so it's a great time to get back into kitefishing
if you packed up through winter.
Kawakawa Bay by Paul Major
It was daybreak on Wed 19th September and the northerly wind that
had been forecast was already blowing straight into the ramp at
Kawakawa Bay.
A quick departure was required and I was shortly anchored a couple
of hundred metres off Ponui Island.
I baited my Boat
Longline Target Hooks with last week's frozen mullet
and trevally. It was in the water 10 minutes later and then I was
fishing from the rods.
After 45 minutes I lifted and unhooked the first grapnel then pulled
the line from the other end.
I do this when it is windy so the longline can drift as I haul
it in and I don't have to drive the boat at all.
I had a reasonable haul of five legal snapper on the
first set and was thinking of departing as the wind freshened. Then
I looked at the remaining bait and decided I had nothing to lose by
doing another set.
I had the line 3/4 deployed when a black cloud passed across the
bottom of the screen of the depth sounder. What was that?
Around 40 minutes later I lifted the first grapnel and felt the
tug of a real fish and not too far away either. I kept on pulling
until I could see the silver red flashes in the clear water and
landed a 6.5lb beaut.
Letting the line go free from the boat I motored to the other end.
Once the grapnel was lifted I could feel the same nodding as I had
on the other end. An 8lb snapper. With this fish and some nice pannies,
I had my limit of nine and was on my way home by 9.30am.
It was a great catch and ample proof that having 25 baited Target
Hooks certainly multiplies your chances of getting a
bait in front of a fish. I don't need to mention that I never got
a bite on the rods.
Porangahau Beach by John Pothan
Apologies to John and those waiting for the Porangahau report
in last week's newsletter, my mistake I completely forgot to put
it in! Hope you enjoy this week's report. Trish
It's Wednesday and we have a 10 knot westerly with slight sea and
a half metre surf running. The water visibility is very good for
the divers.
On Saturday we had at least 10 kites and kontikis
fishing from the beach and a few less on Sunday. Some fishers caught
their limit bag of fish, but there were no reports of any snapper
landed.
Interestingly, fishing further out to sea on boats is patchy despite
the kite and kontiki fishers doing well from the beach.
We get the odd skate from the beach Rodger Gardner shows one
he caught this week
Harry Job from Hastings came down and set up his tent in the free
camping ground overlooking the beach. Harry came for a weekend of
fishing using his Kite Dropper Rig. He had good catches on Saturday
and Sunday.
Harry Job with a red cod caught at Porangahau
Rodger Gardner from Hastings caught seven good gurnard, a skate
and a few red cod from one set on his new Kite Dropper Rig.
If you catch a red cod, keep it, it is great eating. The best way
to deal with red cod is gut and clean the fish and store it in the
fridge for at least 24 hours. Don't try to eat it fresh as the flesh
is too soft. This fish is excellent smoked, but again leave it for
a day in the fridge before smoking.
Don't forget our kahawai contest finishes on Monday the 28th October
so you have the whole weekend to beat the winning fish of 3.42kg.
The kahawai has to be caught off Porangahau Beach and be weighed
in at our shop.
We are going to run another contest as the kahawai one was so successful.
This time it will be for snapper landed off the beach and will run
through to the end of January.
The gurnard are big down here! These are two of Rodger Gardners'
seven he caught on one set of his Dropper Rig
I will provide more details in subsequent newsletters.
Good fishing over the long weekend. If you break any gear, or need
anything, we have all Paul's Fishing Kites rigs, kites and spare
parts in stock.
Regards John Pothan
Porangahau Beach Marine
R D 3 Porangahau
Central Hawkes Bay
Phone 06 8555112 & 06 8555131 Fax 06 8555552
Over the years many kitefishers have found the benefits of floating
baits above the bottom.
Putting floats on the traces prevents them becoming tangled or
wrapped around the mainline Floating the baits can help prevent
paddle crabs from stealing them while you are setting.
Floating baits are also great when surfcasting in crab infested
areas.
To assist kitefishers who want to deploy some of their baits
off the bottom we have imported a new floating bead. These flouro
red beads are 18mm in diameter and have been given the float test
for bait sizes.
A single floating bead on a trace will lift an average size bait.
Two floating beads are recommended for larger baits such as baby
squid.
The new floating beads are available in a packs of five beads
for those who want to tie their own traces and are also available
on a complete pre-tied trace with a 5/0 hook, one or two beads,
clip and swivel tied to the correct length for our trace racks.
Check out the range of Floating Beads and traces or purchase
them here
On Sunday 13th October Alan, David Billings, Jamie Cullen and
I went to Uretiti Beach.
The first set of the Kite
Longline Rig was put out to 1000 metres, it returned
nothing so I put out the next set out to around 1800 metres. We
caught one snapper at 1.0kg and one gurnard. David got a similar
catch.
I had to leave as I had go back to the farm and milk the cows.
Alan came back with me and we left David and Jamie to fish. The
boys were using my bait and were fishing over a reef. They caught
some dark kelpy type snapper up to 10 pounds.
David and Jamie ended up with their limit for the day. At one
stage they had 10 fish in a row with four of them a very good
size. They were caught around 1400 metres out.
The wind was west to southwest and a right hand tack was needed
to ensure the gear went out straight. The weather was not that
pleasant with showers on and off all day and a cool wind. It appears
that the bite time was two hours after high water as full tide
was at 2.30pm.
The total number of fish caught for the day including my two
was 19 snapper and one gurnard.
Alan found two very excited lads when he went to pick them up.
Some photos were taken and they will be sent to you when I have
them developed.
Interestingly all the snapper had extra large roes in them. I
have never seen roes so big, massive. The roes were twice the
size of a sausage!
Cheers
Robbie Cullen
Tacking in Fickle Conditions by Robin Hutchinson
The winds in the Bay of Plenty are notoriously fickle, not only
in direction - but also in wind speed. This makes it very difficult
to determine the amount of plastic bag to be used for tacking
when the wind is so variable.
On Saturday 19th Oct, the wind in the morning was quite strong,
about 20 knots, by midday it was down to about 8 knots but by
late afternoon had increased to 20 knots once again.
In these conditions I have found it better to tack the kite using
just a very small piece of plastic bag, about 50mm wide. To use
anything larger invites the kite to have a swim.
The wind was blowing slightly offshore and required a tack of
60 to 75 degrees, even with such a small piece of plastic this
was achieved with ease. Other anglers using kontikis and bags
went home as they could not manage the marginal conditions. My
wife and I had two successful sets and several fish joined us
for evening tea.
I imagine tacking is one of the most FAQs in your shop. In my
experience, starting off with a small piece of plastic is far
better than starting large then removing some to suit the conditions.
Many of the prime fishing spots in this area have high hills
to the rear of the beach and then the wind velocity is many knots
stronger 500 metres offshore. A good tack near the beach can be
too much when the reel is locked and line stops running free a
kilometre offshore, here the strain is considerably more, where
the kite makes full use of all the extra wind.
With kite anglers I have spoken to, tacking is always the number
one question, and without fail they are putting too much weight
or screwed-up polythene bag on the tacking rope. I find it very
impressive to watch a kite flying in a south-westerly wind, and
have the kite pulling hard as if the wind is actually blowing
south-easterly, giving the impression it is heading into the wind.
I have often been asked how I achieve that? Be interested to read
your thoughts.
"HUTCH".
Tokerau Beach by Phil & Wendy Meara
We went to Tokerau Beach last weekend and fished all day Saturday.
We were using a Bottom Longline powered by a Nighthawk
Kite.
The wind was a straight southerly and very light. We put out
three sets baited with squid. We left the first set out for two
hours, no fish. The second set was left out for three hours on
the turn of the tide (low). We caught two snapper, one weighed
two pound and the other three pound.
The last set was put out at 6pm and retrieved at 9pm. We landed
11 snapper ranging from four to six pound. So we found the best
fishing time was at dusk.
Regards
Phil and Wendy Meara
Cornwallis Beach by Johnathon Appleby
Hi there.
This is my first report, hope you find it of interest. We went
out to Cornwallis Wharf on the Manukau Harbour at the end of last
week. The wind was blowing too close to the beach so we went back
to Cornwallis beach proper and launched the kite.
The wind was extremely blustery so I had to let out more kiteline
(to about 130 meters) to get altitude, there the kite settled
pretty well. We were using a 65kg
Dropper Rig with 13 hooks set to 1000 meters offshore
at around 1200hrs. Left it out for one hour and then retrieved
with great difficulty due to wind speed. It had increased to an
estimated 35 knots.
We brought in one good sized kahawai and an octopus with a tentacle
span of around one metre. Quite a surprise.
Talking to a couple of the locals it seems nothing has been caught
lately at all. Just the one set was put out as the weather started
to close in....packed up and went home.
I would be interested in getting in touch with other kite fishers
for midweek and weekend ventures around Auckland.
Regards
Johnathon Appleby
Pukehina Beach by Kerry Maxwell
I went fishing at Pukehina a couple of weeks ago. I got to the
beach about lunchtime, the wind was almost dead offshore. We set
Kite
Longline Rig out baited with squid.
I left it out about 90 mins then hauled it in with nothing. Set
it out again, same bait, same distance and caught nine good gurnard,
one kahawai and one snapper. Not bad considering I only rebaited
one hook.
On Saturday the wind was no good and had to go back home early
Sunday, just as the wind was coming right. Thems the breaks.
Regards
Kerry Maxwell
Lake Ferry by Matt Rowland
I read that Bob Garratt battled the Wairarapa norwester for
some fish. It is a challenge to launch successfully on the Wairarapa
coast, though we may hear about some more successful sets soon.
One thing to watch at Lake Ferry is the debris that comes out
from the lake. There are many sunken 'treasures' near the outlet,
but it's okay once you move away from there.
For more info on fishing the Wairarapa Coast check out the following
link
Kitefishers in the South Island will be pleased to know you have
an outlet close to home where you can get all your kite fishing
gear.
Stirling Sports in Nelson are now stocking our small Dropper
Rigs and videos. See Darren and the team for all your kite fishing
requirements.
Stirling Sports
247 Trafalgar Street
Nelson
(03) 5483974
Stirling Sports in Wellingtonhave the Target Snapper
Hooks in stock now. See Mark and the team for your fishing needs.
Stirling Sports
44 Willis Street
Wellington
(04) 4728108
Beach Reports
Thank you to those who responded to our request for more Beach
Reports.
Without these reports we have very little information to put
into this newsletter. Please take a couple of minutes to fill
out the form and let everyone know what fish are out there.
The reports do not have to be recent; if you have information
from past fishing trips these can be input as well. Even if you
caught nothing on your last fishing trip the information is important
as it helps to build a real picture of what is happening at that
particular beach. Any information about your kitefishing, surfcasting,
boat, kayak or kontiki experience is welcome. Thank you to all
those who have contributed to the database so far.
Once we have enough reports in the database we will post the
average catch by month on the appropriate maps. If enough people
send reports in you should almost be able to work out what you
will catch before you leave home.
Weather links
The following is a great weather link for west coast kitefishers
If you think any of your friends will be interested in our kitefishing
site or receiving the newsletter please send them to http://www.fishingkites.co.nz
Miss a newsletter or want to check out the back
issues, there is some great reading here
