Arrived in Whitianga for Labour weekend about 10:00am on Friday. I decided to try a set.
The wind was swinging from the northwest to the southwest. The
only place to kite fish had to be Brophys Beach at the north end
of Buffalo Beach.
By the time we were ready to fish the wind must have been more
northwest as I had to tack to the left. Sent the Dropper Rig out with the Nighthawk
kite and set 11 hooks, 10 on the mainline and one on a long back
trace. I baited up with squid and let it out.
The kite went out about 500 metres and then stopped. After a
while it started doing this crazy dance which I managed to settle
down by applying more pressure to the kite. Eventually the gusts
got to much, over 35 knots I suspect, and the spar broke.
I began retrieving kite in the middle of that fierce storm that
hit most of the upper North Island that day between 11:00am and
2:00pm. There was a tremendous amount of weight on the line.
I thought at the time it was only because the kite was in the
water. However, about half way in I noticed some splashing about
where I thought the kite was. It took some time for me to realise
that it was a quite large stingray which suqsequently released
itself making retrieval much easier.
My wife and I were quite happy with the 2kg snapper we caught
because as it turns out this was the largest fish caught all weekend
out of five fishers using rods, nets, the kite and a longline.
Regards Phil Carter
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