View Full Version : Kite Fishing
bothyman
17-08-2005, 08:19
Has anyone tried kite fishing??
>> http://www.fishingkites.co.nz/index.htm
MickT
I once caught a set of rugby posts on Aldershot Rec with a 10’ power kite – but threw it back!
Kite fishing, I fear this is going to cost me a lot of money – thanks for that :D
jdlenton
17-08-2005, 09:44
I wondered when some one would talk about kites on here my other big passion, I’ve tried this it works great gets your line out and well past the surf easily and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg. I used a setup like the big dropper rig but no where near as good. If I’d caught anything like what they seem to have caught I would have lost the hole rig:eek: we only bodged it together from one of my small play kites and some cheap bits from the tackle shop great fun though and we caught our dinner:)
One question how do you make a natural materils field expedient bushcraft kite? ;) Think of all that cordage!:eek:
Hi jdlenton,
So are we going to break away and start a bushkite forum?
What do you fly?
Andy
One question how do you make a natural materils field expedient bushcraft kite? ;) Think of all that cordage!:eek:
When I lived in Sulawesi...blah blah blah.
No seriously though, there are a number of places where Indigenous people fish with kites. In Sulawesi in Indonesia a lot of the local villagers fish from small single person "prahu" or dug out outrigger canoes. When the weather was too bad to take the boats out they would fish from the shore using a large leaf as a kite. The leaf was trapezoidal in shape and was stiffened with struts made from the ribs of palm leafs. They would attach their fishing lines to them similarly to the dropper rig shown in the previous link but much more basic. Main difference is that they would then just crash the kite on to the surface once they had flown it out beyond the surf line and leave it there like a beachcast line.
Cant recall what kind of leaf they used but it may have been breadfruit.
See pics here http://www.kiteman.co.uk/LeaveKites1.html
George
Very interesting.
I use a parafoil kite for antenna lifting. A half wave antenna on the amateur 80 metre band is 40 metres long, and the kite lets you get a lot of wire in the air. There are issues with safety and static to consider.
Never tried fishing with one though.
jdlenton
17-08-2005, 12:26
George;
Those leaf kites are lovely:cool: I wonder what indigenous UK/ European leaves you could use maybe horse chestnut leaves any one got any other ideas for large leaved uk trees we could use to make kites? What did the Sulawesi use as kite lines before nylon fishing line (if that’s what they use). I recon natural cordage would be too heavy for one of those small kites.
AJB;
I fly anything I can get my hands on. :D But seriously I have in my collection small fighter kites, a UFO, quite a few deltas, a Cody box, a Double Square Box, a Rokkaku I have a 3m Felxifoil Viper, I used to buggy and board a lot but sold all my power kit as I thought it a rubbish way of sailing:( (not good up wind) a windsurfer sale on a mountain board or a land yacht are far better on land and a short board windsurfer is far better in the water unless you want to get huge air at high risk and have a mate with a jet ski to bring you back in when you get blown of shore but that’s just my opinion.
Sorry all for taking this off topic back to kite fishing.
Roving Rich
17-08-2005, 12:50
:D :D :D THat loks like great fun, I'm gonna have to go try this at some point
Thanks for the link !
Cheers
Rich
Wow JD, that’s a collection of kites!
I always wanted to have ago on a buggy, I once had my hands on an original Cody Kite, made by the man himself, never got to fly it though. I worked at the Royal Aerospace Est in Farnborough, originally Her Majesties balloon and kite factory, where Cody developed his designs – there were still a few knocking about. How big is yours? Lifted anything?
jdlenton
17-08-2005, 13:15
Hi AJB
I've handled quite a few of W.S.F Cody’s kites my mate had a kite shop and used to specialise in making Cody’s he made one that had a 10m span!:eek: Mine is only about 2 meters pulls quite a bit in a strong wind though. :D I’ve lifted quite a few things with single line kites, things on small parachute, cameras, stuff that looks like UFO’s at night:D . Once had the chance to fly a half size Cody man lifting rigg and that at one point needed three of us sat on the winch to hold it down:eek:
James
I picked up a new Rev Shockwave yesterday to replace my old one :D . Mostly build my own kites though, so far Ive built and flown NPW's, 6ft/12ft Delta's and Revolutions. The Shockwave is my favourite kite, when theres enough wind, I'd love to build a Cody sometime!
jdlenton
17-08-2005, 14:41
I've always wanted a rev but never had the money when one turned up whats an NPW?
If only you could light a fire with a kite, we might get away with a forum!
I suppose you could always sleep under one :D
jdlenton
17-08-2005, 14:59
If you could sharpen with one then we definitely could ;) LOL
Sadly, I think you have just summed us all up ;)
If only you could light a fire with a kite, we might get away with a forum!
I suppose you could always sleep under one :D
mmmmm now that would take all the effort out of a Bow Drill!
jdlenton
17-08-2005, 16:00
umm wind powered bow drill :cool: i'll bring my cody to the next meet and we'll give it a try ey lithril?
Fire Starter
17-08-2005, 16:29
I saw an instructor making one of these in Scotland when he was giving a demo on wilderness fishing techniques. Seemingly the Chinese were using kites for fishing hundreds of years ago.
He constructed a frame of hazel into a box shape and stretched the inner bark of the lime tree around it
I think the bark had been in water for sometime and was wafer thin about 1ft wide. It was rigged up with natural cordage but I can't remember what it was made of. Didn't see it fly though but it did look the part
I think a rev would work really well for fishing. The ability to hover it in one place then easily move it would be ideal.
The line length could be a problem...
George;
Those leaf kites are lovely:cool: I wonder what indigenous UK/ European leaves you could use maybe horse chestnut leaves any one got any other ideas for large leaved uk trees we could use to make kites? What did the Sulawesi use as kite lines before nylon fishing line (if that’s what they use). I recon natural cordage would be too heavy for one of those small kites.
AJB;
I.
Interesting to try to weave horse chestnut leaves and make a kite out of several panels made that way.
Nowadays they all use monofilament line but I was told that even up until recently (eighties, early nineties) they would make their own fishing line and weave nets from various materials that included a couple of plants very similar to nettles. I have some net bags that are made of fibres taken from some kind of orchid as well. The orchid fibres are very strong but I doubt they would be useful as kite lines. I know that in other places they used silk strings - I wonder if there was something similar in Sulawesi? Certainly they had cotton thread too and that could easily make a string.
I was also told that they use spiders webs - not for the line but as a mixture of lure and hook when they are fishing for a specific kind of fish. Basically a ball of spiders web is tied on to the end of the dropper line and allowed to hit the surface of the water. The fish they are trying to catch has a long thin mouth with long needle like teeth that catch in the web ball and they can pull the fish in with it.
I never saw this technique being used but was told about it by several independant sources so it's entirely possible that it was true.
All interesting stuff though - I think I'll need to try it with some of the big sled kites I've got.
George
I've always wanted a rev but never had the money when one turned up whats an NPW?
The Rev's are expensive for what they are, but then theres nothing else that flies quite like them. If you have access to a sewing machine you can make your own, some plans for the 1.5 series here
Rev's and NPW's (http://freedom2000.free.fr/index_eng.html)
The NPW is a Nasa Parawing, designed by Rogello in the late 60's as part of a series of foils intended to control re-entry of the space shuttle scaled down and turned into a kite. Basically it a single skin traction foil, generates lots of drag, quite controllable and fairly slow flying, cheap and simple relativ to the double skin foils, some details on the above link also.
Im not sure about a Rev for kite fishing Stu, much as I love Rev's ;) I think you'd have trouble getting the line out far enough, I reckon a single line sled type or a rokaku would work better, something simple and stable with a low angle of flight.
jdlenton
18-08-2005, 11:21
NPW= a NASA wing Arr I think you could fish with a small one of those on a single line that would work ?
I used to have one but my mate took a fancy to it so I gave it him as it rarely came out of my bag.
I’ve seen some really good photos of the NASA experiments for re-entry vehicles even saw some photos of an ejector seat on one apparently the were thinking that they could get a long glide path out of them so if the plane ditched over the ocean the crew could glide there ejector seats back towards or on to the land nice idea wonder why it didn’t work?
A rev for fishing? I’m not sure you would be able to lift you catch with a rev especially if you had a few fish on the line