Our second longline was made up of 12 traces with two hooks and two floating beads on each. We baited them with chunks of mullet for bait.

After waiting 30 minutes to let the lines fish we pulled the gear. The line with the 12 two hook traces came up with almost a fish on each trace.

The biggest snapper was taken on a floating bead trace with a bit of red flasher material

Between both lines we had our limit of 18 by 7.15 am. The big one was caught on a single hook trace fitted with a single floating bead and some red flasher material for good measure.

The fish looks massive in the photos but weighed in at only 11 lbs. I think it would go 15 at the end of summer feeding but we couldn't wait until then.

Paul Major

Weymouth Boating Club

The Inaugural Karikari Kitefishing Klassic was held at Whatuwhiwhi Top 10 Holiday Park on the Karikari Peninsula.

The competition had 20 teams from Northland to Taranaki.

Even though the sun shone and the wind did not blow for four days (which is unusual for the peninsula) 47 fish were caught.

RESULTS OVERALL WINNER

Flexiwing Report from Hemi Hau

I bought my Flexiwing Kite Rig in September and have enjoyed kite fishing since. My largest snapper so far was caught at Pakiri Beach. I didn't weigh it but it measured 24 inches long. On my last trip I used salted mullet bait and caught two snapper, one gurnard and a kahawai on the incoming tide.

During November, I have been to Pakiri Beach one day a week and have always returned home with between 4 and 12 fish of which the majority is snapper.

Ed : I have put in a snapper weight to length chart on the left to help work out weights of fish from their length. 24 inches = 61CM = 4.3KG, It was a very good fish!

Boat Longline Report from Lee Johnson

On Wednesday a few weeks ago, (while we had the primo weather!!) we went out and put the longline out for the first time this summer.

We had brand new 4/0 Target Snapper Hooks and everything!! We set the line in the Tiri Island area and left it for about 2 hours to fish the incoming tide. While we waited we had a fish with the rods and between 3 of us pulled in 9 good sized snapper, the biggest being about 4kg. We also had to throw back a few as they were a bit small.

When we picked up the longline there were 12 good sized snapper on it plus two smaller ones which went back (they took a long time to start swimming again but got away).

Once the gear was all on the boat we found two of the traces had been broken off. One floating and one standard. Bugger! On the way home a large school of kawahai started working. What the hell we thought and caught a few for the smoker!!

Squid seems to be the bait of choice at the moment they are nibbling then hitting really hard after a bit. Pillies and bonito baits are just falling off when they nibble.

Cheers guys great newsletters, Lee.

Often in deep water the air bladder of snapper will rupture as the line is being hauled up and the bubbles from the bladder will rise to the surface before the fish comes into view. Sometimes however, the bladder does not rupture and is so inflated the fish becomes too buoyant and rigid to swim back down and recompress the bladder.

A simple prick with the appendage on fish with intact inflated bladders is all that is required to artificially vent the excess air. Fish with burst air bladders quickly recover and the bladder heals quickly. The Ministry of Fisheries vents the air bladders during fish tagging surveys and has found survival in manually vented fish is very high.

Venting the bladder with an appendage is likely to be much less traumatic for fish than having the bladder explode naturally during hauling or releasing fish with inflated bladders which continue to float until they die or are scavenged by seabirds.

If you are not using appendaged snapper hooks the inflated bladder can be popped with and iki spike or less preferably a knife or other sharp object.

Just thought we would let you know the gurnard have been on the bite over the weekend.

We have had some good reports come in, the best from James Fringe a well known local kite fisherman.

His best for the day yesterday was a massive 1.62gurnard caught surfcasting on a pilchard bait.

James caught six gurnard and his brother landed four, all off their rods.

Other reports include a catch of 14 taken surfcasting at one spot and 12 at another so the fish have been close in over the weekend.

Cheers Maureen & John Pothan - Website : Porangahau Beach Motel

Home Made Trace Storage System one from Alister Tompkins

If you are like me, carrying more than one trace at a time always ends up as a tangle. The following ideas may help if you want to make a trace storage system yourself.

First you will need a plastic mig welding wire spool. They are made from ABS plastic and are very strong. Any engineering shop is usually delighted to find someone who will take them off their hands.

As can be seen in the photo, the hook is simply put through the eye of the previous sea harvester clip and wound on. The traces of course can be any length, which eliminates the problem of tying them to an exact size.

The spool will hold untold traces, and if they are wound on with a bit of tension, any kinks will have come out of the traces by the next time they are used.

Drill holes 75mm apart around the rim of the spool and use a rubber band to hold the last clip. You will find that it is a very convenient way to carry the hooks, they are easily available to bait up, and can be wound back on the drum as you unclip the traces off the pre-stoppered mainline.

We have found it to work just as well for storing un-baited traces on the boat as it does on the beach.

In the photo the board is a piece of 5mm polyethylene sheet, but anything suitable stiff enough will work fine. I have used plywood but have found plastic of some sort cleans up better and doesn't smell after a time the way ply does!

I use 4mm pop rivets to hold the tubes in place. The bottom ends need an aluminium or stainless bracket bent as shown in the sketch fitted inside the tube to stop the hooks or clips sliding straight through.

A further two 20mm wide strips are used as also shown in the sketch to complete the mounting. Cut the slot along tubes BEFORE fixing them to the board.

None of the dimensions are critical, use what you have.

Finally an easy way to put anti crab floats on the line. Attach corks using docking rings and an applicator. These are very quick to fit or remove and slide along the line to where required.

I suggest you open the swivel end of the sea harvester clip and put on a 1/4 or 1/2 oz. sinker on the shank of the clip.

The sinker stops the corks from floating the line off the bottom.

Alister Tompkins.