By Captain Damon Sacco
Contrary to popular belief, kite fishing was originated in Asia. Most good innovative technology is! Kite fishing was invented by fishermen who were fishing from shore and striving to increase the range of their fishing capabilities. They used kites to accomplish this. The use of kites in modern day western sportfishing date back into the early 1900’s as West Coast anglers in Southern California employed kites to suspend trolled baits, usually flying fish, away from the boat. Zane Grey was an instrumental advocate of kite fishing. This method proved to be a very effective technique, and it caught on like wild fire, spreading across to the east coast, especially down in Florida where it has proven to be absolutely deadly on sailfish and king mackerel. Kite fishing has since become a popular practice in the Northeast, and for good reason. It works magic on unsuspecting bluefin tuna.
If you’ve ever fished for bluefin tuna, you’re most likely well aware of how finicky and temperamental these fish can be. Kite fishing with live bait is a great way to overcome this obstacle. If employed correctly, kite fishing can almost guarantee you’ll get fish to eat—even on days when most fishermen are scratching their heads ready to go home and grab their golf clubs. Kite fishing offers a very stealth-like and low profile presentation. If you think about it, while you’re fishing with a kite, the only portion of your presented tackle that’s actually beneath the waterline is your bait. Your fishing line, swivel, leader, even your hook are completely out of the water 90-percent of the time. This is a huge advantage. All the fish see is the belly, fins, and tail of a nervous bait, and that’s it. The result is a hole in the ocean followed by a screaming drag.
So let’s first talk about the simple philosophy and breakdown of kite fishing. Ive created a few simple diagrams to help you conceptualize the whole process. Referencing Illustration 1, you have your boat, and on it your kite rod. Attached to your kite rod is your kite line which is running out to your actual kite. Along your kite line are your inline barrel-swivels which are spaced roughly 50 feet apart. These barrel-swivels are the places where we can attach our fishing line to the kite. Connected to the barrel-swivel is what is referred to as a tag-line which hangs off of the kite line and toward the waters surface where our fishing line is attached.
The tag line simply attaches to the inline barrel-swivel on our kite line via a snap-swivel, and runs down toward the water. The purpose of this tag line is to allow us to run our fishing line closer to the water’s surface. Without the tag line in place, we would have to run our fishing line off of our rod tip all the way up to the kite and then all the way back down to the water. After a hook-up, we would have an excessive amount of slack line to deal with, and trying to absorb 100 plus feet of loose line to come tight on a fish is an absolute nightmare. Every good angler knows that slack line is the enemy when tuna fishing. So I strongly recommend you use a tag line at all times in your kite fishing application. Now to be honest, most boats that I have seen out there in the fleets are not using tag lines. Trust me when I say it’s not because they don’t need them. They most likely don’t know how to use them. Tag lines are a must have as far as I’m concerned. If we follow the tag line down from our kite line, the opposite end is just a few feet above the water line.
This is where we will attach our fishing line which will run through a small outrigger clip situated at the bottom end of our tag line. I recommend using an Aftco Roller Troller flat line clip as these particular clips are light weight (wont adversely affect the kite) and have a non-abrasive roller mechanism which is less likely to compromise the integrity of your fishing line. The overall trick is to position your tag line so that its bottom end hovers roughly 10 feet above the water’s surface. When a fish strikes, the Aftco clip opens and the kite is completely removed from the equation.
If you’ve ever fished for bluefin tuna, you’re most likely well aware of how finicky and temperamental these fish can be. Kite fishing with live bait is a great way to overcome this obstacle. If employed correctly, kite fishing can almost guarantee you’ll get fish to eat—even on days when most fishermen are scratching their heads ready to go home and grab their golf clubs. Kite fishing offers a very stealth-like and low profile presentation. If you think about it, while you’re fishing with a kite, the only portion of your presented tackle that’s actually beneath the waterline is your bait. Your fishing line, swivel, leader, even your hook are completely out of the water 90-percent of the time. This is a huge advantage. All the fish see is the belly, fins, and tail of a nervous bait, and that’s it. The result is a hole in the ocean followed by a screaming drag.
So let’s first talk about the simple philosophy and breakdown of kite fishing. Ive created a few simple diagrams to help you conceptualize the whole process. Referencing Illustration 1, you have your boat, and on it your kite rod. Attached to your kite rod is your kite line which is running out to your actual kite. Along your kite line are your inline barrel-swivels which are spaced roughly 50 feet apart. These barrel-swivels are the places where we can attach our fishing line to the kite. Connected to the barrel-swivel is what is referred to as a tag-line which hangs off of the kite line and toward the waters surface where our fishing line is attached.
The tag line simply attaches to the inline barrel-swivel on our kite line via a snap-swivel, and runs down toward the water. The purpose of this tag line is to allow us to run our fishing line closer to the water’s surface. Without the tag line in place, we would have to run our fishing line off of our rod tip all the way up to the kite and then all the way back down to the water. After a hook-up, we would have an excessive amount of slack line to deal with, and trying to absorb 100 plus feet of loose line to come tight on a fish is an absolute nightmare. Every good angler knows that slack line is the enemy when tuna fishing. So I strongly recommend you use a tag line at all times in your kite fishing application. Now to be honest, most boats that I have seen out there in the fleets are not using tag lines. Trust me when I say it’s not because they don’t need them. They most likely don’t know how to use them. Tag lines are a must have as far as I’m concerned. If we follow the tag line down from our kite line, the opposite end is just a few feet above the water line.
This is where we will attach our fishing line which will run through a small outrigger clip situated at the bottom end of our tag line. I recommend using an Aftco Roller Troller flat line clip as these particular clips are light weight (wont adversely affect the kite) and have a non-abrasive roller mechanism which is less likely to compromise the integrity of your fishing line. The overall trick is to position your tag line so that its bottom end hovers roughly 10 feet above the water’s surface. When a fish strikes, the Aftco clip opens and the kite is completely removed from the equation.
