Kite fishing for Tuna?

[Hardtail Hunter]

Has anyone tried using a kite to fish for tuna up north here? I have recently read articles of the captains in the carolinas and florida use them to skip lures across the surface when the fish aren't reacting to a troll bite. I was just thinking it might work to skip a plastic squid across the surface and have tuna bust on it. Also is anyone familiar with this type of fishing and how it is done?

Thanks

[Slamdance]

Lots of General Category boats fish kites for giants. They mostly use live bluefish or pogies and are usually anchored or slow drifting. Bascially you just have release clips on your kite line. You put your line from the rod through the clip and send it up. When a fish takes your bait the clip releases and you're good to go.

[twofinbluna]

Has anyone tried using a kite to fish for tuna up north here? I have recently read articles of the captains in the carolinas and florida use them to skip lures across the surface when the fish aren't reacting to a troll bite. I was just thinking it might work to skip a plastic squid across the surface and have tuna bust on it. Also is anyone familiar with this type of fishing and how it is done?

Thanks

(edit- did not notice slamdance's comment until after i wrote this and what he said is true as well)

A few years back, the Pratt's (commercial harpoon/hook family from MA) nailed them with a kite. They were using live bluefish, fishing on or around the Middle Bank and CC Bay. They trimmed everyone that year because they were using the kite/live bluefish setup. Now you see kites all over the place, mostly (up here at least) with live bluefish. There were probably some guys who had tried it before the Pratt's, but it was their year a few years back that really opened people's eyes.

The Pratt's were the ones that figured out that using braided line was essential. There were some trying to use the setup that year after seeing them doing so well. Nobody else could catch a thing and nobody knew why. They are very good tuna fishermen but even that did not seem to explaion it. And they probably had other tricks that they knew too, but it was the line they used that seems to have made it all possible to be the only ones that would get fish day after day. Eventually people found out and now one of the Pratt's even sells the line! (You gotta love the ability of the Pratt's to keep that trick secret for a whole year. Trust me, that takes a lot of skill in this fishery!)

I do not know if I would bother unless it was with a live bluefish, though because there is something about them that tuna love. Its like tuna cannot pass up the chance to chase/harass/eat bluefish. Almost seems to be as much for fun as food. Thats especially true for the bigger fish, in the 600+ pound range. (Frostie or someone else once said something about stripers working for tuna. I have never seen or heard of that but to the south it may for all i know)

One of the reasons the kite has seen more use is because of the dogfish problem. You cannot chum or fish deep with liveys because of them. While there are so many dogs that even bluefish on top can be harassed, you no doubt have a much better chance of getting free of the dogs with a kite/bluefish on top than you do trying to fish with the normal methods.

So, again, this method has been used by a good amount of people since a few years ago and it seems to be working pretty well. There is a lot to it and you will be much better off with the setup if you know the right spots to do it. You want to be somewhere that big tuna frequent, basically. And then you have to have the right gear and enough knowledge to make it work. I am sure that the First Light guys can either hook it up for you or at least be able to point you in the right direction.

I'll say this- its something we will definitely be trying now that we have a general quota boat again (and can use rod/reel again, finally). :brow

[soundownsam]

I've caught alot of fish down south on kites and have wanted to chase giants or even schoolies with kites for a while now. I have talked to a few people and hope to get out this summer and give it a try.

I always figured you might need to go with braid for fishing blues off the kite. The weight of wet 130 or 200 mono in the air would make it very difficult to handle a large bait like a bluefish. I would certainly want floats on my spars as the clips will be very tight for baits over 3lbs and trying to hand line a kite from the deep and fight a big fish doesn't sound like fun.

sam

[Hardtail Hunter]

The guys I read about are using lures like a plastic flying fish or squid and are keeping them right at the surface. It almost seems like they are trolling but using a kite as an outrigger?

[soundownsam]

I have read about using rigged flying fish and small lures under kites and they are indead acting like a very tall rigger or green stick. While this might work on schoolies I think that it is more of a canyon technique for yellows and long fns. I have never fished out there, however, lure size and presentation appear to be much different out there.

sam

[Verbal]

A few years back, the Pratt's (commercial harpoon/hook family from MA) nailed them with a kite. They were using live bluefish, fishing on or around the Middle Bank and CC Bay. They trimmed everyone that year because they were using the kite/live bluefish setup. Now you see kites all over the place, mostly (up here at least) with live bluefish. There were probably some guys who had tried it before the Pratt's, but it was their year a few years back that really opened people's eyes.

The Pratt's were the ones that figured out that using braided line was essential. There were some trying to use the setup that year after seeing them doing so well. Nobody else could catch a thing and nobody knew why. They are very good tuna fishermen but even that did not seem to explaion it. And they probably had other tricks that they knew too, but it was the line they used that seems to have made it all possible to be the only ones that would get fish day after day. Eventually people found out and now one of the Pratt's even sells the line! (You gotta love the ability of the Pratt's to keep that trick secret for a whole year. Trust me, that takes a lot of skill in this fishery!)



Having fished with both Mike and Ralph for a number of years I can verify what you wrote. They employ MANY tricks and tactics (some that are borderline voodoo (#$119)) that no one else would think of. They are true pioneers.
I can remember fishing with them for the first time many years ago and shaking my head in disbelief at some of the things I was seeing while we were setting up. It wasn't an hour later that a 750lb fish was lying on the deck. Since that day I have been a believer.
You don't hear much about them or their techniques because they are very closely guarded. I will say that if you're not carving bullseyes on the bellies on your bluefish you are missing out ;)

[fleshfly]

Good info, Do people use Kites for anything else? I saw a few boats, at the same time fishing them pretty close to just off Ipswich bay this year. Is it safe to say they fishing for Giants that close?

[twofinbluna]

Good info, Do people use Kites for anything else? I saw a few boats, at the same time fishing them pretty close to just off Ipswich bay this year. Is it safe to say they fishing for Giants that close?

Close to shore and especially in Ipswich Bay are areas you would likely see guys fishing for giants with a kite, for sure.

[JoeA]

The Pratts are indeed the best tuna fisherman in cape cod bay, but they are good airplane pilots too. They know where the fish are and with the plane can locate them very quickly. When your fishing for money there is nothing wrong with using a plane. You almost have too when the amount of money on the line is in the hundreds of thosands.

[twofinbluna]

The Pratts are indeed the best tuna fisherman in cape cod bay, but they are good airplane pilots too. They know where the fish are and with the plane can locate them very quickly. When your fishing for money there is nothing wrong with using a plane. You almost have too when the amount of money on the line is in the hundreds of thosands.

Ralph is an excellent pilot, especially on or around the Middle Bank and the Bay. And Michael can clearly hit them pretty well. There are a handful of good families in the harpoon fishery and they are certainly one of them. The year they nailed them with the kite they also had a great year harpooning. That was a great year for them. They are hard goers and they put in the time needed to catch fish.

But I disagree with you on needing to have a plane. We had a plane for 8-10 years and then made a decision to get rid of it and have been without one for probably 8 years now. While I have days where I would love to have a plane again, we all would rather not have one. Only 1 guy in Maine uses a plane now, and the boats going work together and we are able to find fish. I would not go back to using a plane, at least not the way things are now.

Dont get me wrong- having a plane is an enormous advantage in a lot of ways. For example, on windy days the fish often run downwind and you basically have to either be extremely lucky and tun into a bunch, or you have to have a plane. The fish are easy to see from the plane but from a boat, fish skirting downwind are very hard to find. That year the Pratt's nailed them, there was one day when it breezed up hard SW on teh NW Corner and they got four fish while the other boats there, probably 5 of them, did not even see a single bunch. The fish were right there but you had to have a plane or you might as well go in. (You need to have a good pilot to do that, its not easy)

Then there is the issue of finding fish in general...a plane can cover 10 times more ground than a boat (probably a lot more than 10 times) and so it is naturally going to be a good way to find fish.

But you have to catch at least 1/3 more fish to even pay for the plane, and it puts a ton of pressure on you if you are not catching fish. It was costing the pilots roughly $1000 a day the last few years, and since the fishing sucked, thats a lot of money you are losing. There was a year when one Cape boat used a plane with two pilots in it! They eneded up with 50 or more fish and barely made a cent....

And there are times when not having a plane helps. You would be amazed how many times a plane will drag a boat from one spot to another one far away, only for that first area to end up being the spot to be and if you dont have a plane you rarely steam from one spot to another unless you have a confirmed report of something good from someone you work with. You fish very differenlty without a plane and if you know what you are doing you can benefit from not having the plane.

And lastly, Its also a lot more fun catching fish without a plane, for the most part. At least in my opinion. Like I said, there are certainly days when I wish i had a plane, but for the most part we like fishing without one.

Planes can also be a pain in the butt for everyone who does not have a plane. Back in the nineties when we were catching the quota by July, there were days when you would have 10-15 planes in an area and 10-15 boats steaming all over the place. I know, we had a plane then. Those years drove us to get rid of our plane fight to get rid of the planes.

(The eventual result of that issue was an 'agreement' that left some quota for the non-plane boats so that if the plane boats caught the quota by the end of June the non-plane boats had a chance to fish. I think that is the right way to deal with the issue of planes. No need to stop planes, but allow others who dont have planes a chance by splitting the quota as they had planned.)

Little did we all know that we would all be undercut by the midwater trawlers and none of our infighting would matter. I WISH our main problem was having too many planes! Its funny how it came full circle, now we could care less about planes flying and just wish we had the herring to bring in the fish! Now we have to worry about keeping our fishery, period.

[Soundking]

That's one technique I am really happy I learned. An advantage of the time I spent in Florida was how different the fishery was down there. Starting from total scratch in learning a new fishery expanded my game so much.

I have some SFE's that are jonesing for flight time. I plan on bump trolling livies under kites to breezing fish a lot this year. That's the beauty of learning new stuff, just one more situation I have a solution for!

[Frankie G]

That's one technique I am really happy I learned. An advantage of the time I spent in Florida was how different the fishery was down there. Starting from total scratch in learning a new fishery expanded my game so much.

I have some SFE's that are jonesing for flight time. I plan on bump trolling livies under kites to breezing fish a lot this year. That's the beauty of learning new stuff, just one more situation I have a solution for!

Game on man. Crush it bro. Briing that game.

Frank

[Soundking]

Game on man. Crush it bro. Briing that game.

Frank

Really? It's like that, huh? Well, in the words of Lil' Scrappy... get on my level.

[JoeA]

twofinbluna I really have learned an immence amount about the giant tuna from your posts for sure. Those are some great first hand experience lesson you have learned. In your experience when a school of tuna is in a say sqaure mile area how long do they generally stay put in one general area? I really would love to learn about using a kite and fishing the general areas people fish for giants ie peaked hill and other spots on the bank. I really hope they make a comeback inside the bay.

[twofinbluna]

In your experience when a school of tuna is in a say sqaure mile area how long do they generally stay put in one general area?

It all depends on what the fish are doing. A lot of times when they are running on top they will pick a direction and go that direction for a while, some times faster than others. Seen them go almost at a standstill all the way to close to 15 knots for extended periods.They will sometimes go up and down in the water but their direction will stay the same.

Some bunches ('magic bunches') will literally run on top in one direction for hours. Normally bunches dont do that though and might run for 10-20 minutes if your lucky. Then you have the opposite kind of bunch which does a 50 yard dash and goes down not to be seen again.

Then sometimes they are cartwheeling (going in a circle) and when they do that they do not go far at all, and will stay in the same spot. They sometimes will go from running straight and into a cartwheel, then back to running, and so forth. But sometimes the real big bunches will cartwheel for a long time and so they wont leave one spot for that whole time.

Or the can start milling which is a pain in the butt most of the time. They kind of just dick around and go this way and that real slow and are often squirly at the same time. They dont cover much ground doing this though.

And if they are feeding they will likely stay in one area for a while but could move around fast while they feed.

Sometimes they just go down deep and book it offshore. They saw that well when they did the acoustic tracking a while back. When tuna want they can cover a lot of ground and in a very short time. If you have a bunch cruising at 10-12 knots, they can be in Canada in 24 hours if they want to.

Littler fish are different though than the big ones. I think big ones cycle in and out of areas, at least in part, because its safe. Staying on one area for a few days is risky for them, so they normally will cycle around and when you think they are gone they come back (thats assuming there is herring or other food around). Big ones are very picky and even slight wind direction changes will turn them from catchable to spooky and impossible to get near.

Little ones are not as smart and they do not always move around much. They seemed to stick around every area they invaded last year and were always easy to find. Big ones are WAY more sneaky and so you expect them to be moving around more (also since they are physically bigger). I general little ones are going to probably move around less for a bunch of reasons.

So, it all depends. What I just wrote barely scratches the surface on that issue, but I need to get some sleep so thats all I got for now!

[JoeA]

This is good stuff. Thanks.

[BHenchy]

Funny how a thread about kites turned into a love-fest for Ralph and Mike Pratt. I know they'd like it--it's not what they're used to hearing around the docks from the competition.:)

I'll share one funny story. Years back, I got a call from Ralph on the radio--he had caught his General category limit on Stellwagen and wanted to know if I'd like him to come down and fly for a little bit. We were about 20 miles east of the BB, and I said sure. He was down in about 25 minutes, and we had no trouble finding bunches all over the place, but they were milling, and very tough to get near.

There was also a problem with the light, with a dark cloud line covering half the sky. When the fish ran in that direction, it was just black, and you couldn't see them from the pulpit.

Anyhow, we were going on a bunch and the radio cuts out. They were running into that dark water, and I lost them. I told the fellow I had running the boat to radio Ralph and let him know the radio had cut out. He didn't do it.

So, as I'm searching the water for that school, I looked up at the plane for a minute. Just then, I could hear the very faintest voice yelling at me----"Riggggghttttt". It was Ralph, yelling from the plane. I looked right, sure enough, there they were. 3 boats away.

Didn't get one from that school. My guy radioed Ralph like I told him finally, and comes back "What the F*(&^ is wrong with out communications?". We got it straightened out, and shortly thereafter got a fish. I teased Ralph because it was only a little guy, 400 lbs or so.

We had a long ride back, but Ralph cut out immediately and headed home. Turns out it was his and Jane's wedding anniversary, and they were going out to dinner. I've always enjoyed working with those guys, and I'm sure they will continue to figure out ways to catch them when others struggle.

[JoeA]

I fish out of Scituate and most guys that dont like the pratts are jealous unfortuanatly. They do share quite a bit about their techniques at seminars over the winter. One year I think 2005 they landed over 80 giant tuna which is an astounding feat considering the low number of fish around.

[Frankie G]

Game on man. Crush it bro. Briing that game.

Frank

JJ-
Sorry. I am guilty of a little PUI. Posting Under the Influence.:-%:-%:-%:-%:-%:-%:-%perhaps 1 or 2 more. (#$119)No harm meant.

Frank

[twofinbluna]

Funny how a thread about kites turned into a love-fest for Ralph and Mike Pratt. I know they'd like it--it's not what they're used to hearing around the docks from the competition.:)



For a bunch of years there our family and the Pratt's were not necessarily "friendly" with eachother- had a couple run-ins on the Bank and then there was the whole battle over the planes on top of it... but over the years I have grown to respect those guys and so I have no problem giving them credit when credit is due. There are not many harpooning families left and they are one of the few.

[capescrod]

Since I don't fish out of a big rig, I don't have built in electrics - and cause I like reeling in commercial bass so much, I don't have free standing ones either yet for my kite rod. I know I need to just bite the bullet and get one, but does anyone else want to share or have an opinion about the next best thing?

[soundownsam]

Since I don't fish out of a big rig, I don't have built in electrics - and cause I like reeling in commercial bass so much, I don't have free standing ones either yet for my kite rod. I know I need to just bite the bullet and get one, but does anyone else want to share or have an opinion about the next best thing?

The best electric kite reel or the best alternative to an electric kite reel?

For electric kite reels I like the Dolphin electrics because they have the motor mounted on the right side of the reel and the still have a hand crank on the right. Lots of guys like the Cristals because of the big level drag and it woudl be my second choice.

Next best thing to an electric is, in my opion, a good penn 6/0 high speed. These reels have enough torque to make it so you aren't fighting the kite that hard to pull it in. If you had the coin an old 50 International (~$200 on ebay) would be pretty good.

There is a product called the dreel that makes it so a standrad 3/8" drill will hook up to the retaining nut for your penn seantor handle and make it an "electric". I'd rather pay for an electric reel once than cordless drills and battery packs everytime it gets wet.

sam

[JAVIDANGLER]

Twofin,
Last July in CCBay there were probably as many re'c as there were harpoon boats. 5 miles off the coast they were parked just about every 1/4 mile all thru the bay and over to P-Town. There were ever 2 planes.

One of the planes showed us just where the fish were. A school of 15-20 giants followed my bow and stern wake for a good 20 min. They wanted nothing to do with the bars an giant plug I was dragging. It would have been a tough shot with the poon. They were 10-15 feet down but clearly visible.

J--

[twofinbluna]

Thats sweet. Big ones are smart, they know that when they are close to the surface that they are at risk because they often throw off a wake. Obviously big ones are not always smart, and sometimes swim with their back out of water into the wind (real sneaky ;) ) but a lot of times they are smart enough to know how to stay in stealth mode.

(One time when planes realllllly help is when you have bunches swimming real deep, even deeper than 15 feet. With real clear water the plane can see them realllllllllllly far down, way further down than a boat without a plane could ever possibly find. A lot of times tuna will travel deep, then they will get to the place they want to be and they come up to the surface and become catchable.

We had times when our plane would follow fish for 20 miles when they were real deep and would follow them, follow them, and then all of a sudden he would look up and that deep running bunch had led them us to the motherlode out in the middle of nowhere. Being able to chase deep fish was one of the big arguments people had against planes. The argument was that if the boats with planes chase the fish when they are too deep for anyone without a plane to have a chance at, it would make it so you had to have a plane if you wanted to fish in areas the planes would be around.)

Deep fish are definitely a lot harder with the refraction and everything but you can get them if you have a sunny day with good light, so feel free to give us a call if you have that situation again and we will hopefully be on target that day. :brow :brow

Sad to see so few harpoon boats going in the Bay but thats what happens when the overwhelming majority of fish are tiny. At least up here you can go 150 or so miles east to try and get away from them...in the Bay if those smalls invade, you cannot get away from them. There were some bunches of real big ones around but it does not take long before it drives you insane seeing bunch after bunch after bunch of fish so small you laugh when you get over them.

Its not only the small fish being there, its also because you don't have the massive waves of bigger fish near the Bank because of the lack of herring and other forage that brought those waves in over the entire summer. But in the small Bay, you cannot underestimate how frustrating it must be with all those small fish...even IF you have a plane (and a good enough pilot to tell size accurately!).

[amarshall]

The day we hooked up with the BIG fish..

http://reel-time.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57416&highlight=grander

we had stopped by the kite store in P-town harbor the day prior and used a $20 mickey mouse 5 foot kite. We knew the wind would be almost zero the next day. The fancy $200 kites could not get up in such light wind.

[twofinbluna]

LOL, I never thought about trying a toy kite...thats sweet that it worked out, although I still feel your pain for losing that one!