Hi guys, This little fella was accidentally killed near an offshore oil rig in West Africa.

It was about 17 feet wide.

I thought you would like to see it.

Thanks. (Hey, do I win a prize?)

Dayo Ojo See other photo below

Rays Bream

Photo Above

We recently caught these rays bream.

John van der Haas

On Saturday they forecast 15 knot southerlies which never came.

I took the dingy down the Manukau Harbour headed off to fish the 1A marker buoy for a couple of hours.

On the first set of my longline I caught a solitary two pound snapper.

While the second longline set was fishing for 20 minutes I managed to catch a two and a half pound panny in the rod.

The second set of the longline got a three pounder. With the fish getting bigger imagine what I might have caught if I stayed longer!

Paul Major Weymouth Boating Club

The Monday of Easter weekend we caught 10 snapper and two kahawai on two 24 hook shots of our submarine. We used salted bonito bait and fished over the outgoing tide.

Both sets were straight offshore.

The picture above only shows the results of our efforts on the last day of the Easter break, but we actually fished over the whole weekend for 24 good size snapper and two kahawai.

We fished early evening, just a couple of hours before low tide and this was definitely bite time for the fish on this beach. I used an electric kon tiki and the weather was reasonably calm but it got cold when the sun went down.

All and all there seems to be plenty of fish around at the moment as some other fishermen in the motor camp also reported good fishing, whether from boats or surf casting from the beach or rocks.

Do you ever worry about losing your kontiki?

I have used the dropper system shown in the sketch below on my kontiki for 12 months now without yet having a tangle or any other problems.

There is certainly some comfort in knowing that if the hooks do get snagged it is still possible to get the kontiki back.

With a release system connected at the end of the safety trace the kontiki can also be used to pull out a number of lines and drop them offshore.

I use the same 20m of line ahead of the hooks and either the small sinker or a cork to keep it away from the hook line to avoid a tangle.

This has worked very well, we have the two reels about three metres apart on the beach and again have not yet had a tangle.

I have mostly used a barley sugar type release although I am currently working on a design using a garden sprinkler timer control. If anyone has an accurate simple time release system I would be delighted to hear the details.

The safety trace isn't critical regards length and the small sinker is just to keep the two lines apart. I like to have the safety trace at the top of the drop line because when the line is retrieved to the safety trace, there is then 30m of heavy line still out in the surf to drag in whatever load there may be through the back wash.

The same thing applies to kites, I once lost a line of fish through having the safety trace down by the hooks in big surf conditions.

The cork floats are easy to make,

The clips to hold them in place are 20mm lengths of 20mm PVC water pipe cut as shown, they are fitted on as the line goes out and are clipped on about 8m apart on the first 50 or 60 metres of the main line.

They are to keep the main line floating so that it doesn't tangle with the hooks.

Put a taper on the end of the corks and they push on very easily over the line which is lying on the bottom of the clip.

When there is a bit of a rip, towing a second line out and dropping it works well - doesn't get washed up the beach nearly as much.

I mostly fish on my own and have no trouble using the kontiki this way, with two it is dead easy.

PS : Just a bit further to the kontiki drag and drop item. We have found that a mintie used as shown in the photo above, works better the a barley sugar for a release.

The minitie or barley sugar is wrapped in a piece of panty hose. The loop in the dacron cord is 5mm diameter. The cord works better than a wire loop - takes longer for the candy to dissolve.

I have heard that hard soap is better still but I haven't tried it. If the release is placed down by the hook - stopper line the drop line from the kontiki comes back with the kontiki, and there is no chance of it tangling with the hooks.

Using a kite for drag and drop also works well. It uses much less beach space and greatly reduces wear on the kite. A power winch or capstan is an advantage of course, but isn't necessary.

An accurate timer is always better than a candy type, particularly if the line is going kilometer out. The ideal is to drop the line exactly when the motor in the kontiki stops.

Perhaps you could invite designs for release mechanisms and publish them in the newsletters.

Alister Tompkins.

11lb mutton snapper from the West Indies

I wanted to take the opportunity to commend you on your excellent website.

I recently tried a home made version of your longline and the first night I caught a 11lb mutton snapper. Awesome!

Dave Antigua,

West Indies

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http://www.fishingkites.co.nz/newsletters/archive.htm

Contact us mailto:paulbarnes@fishingkites.co.nz