Kites aren't only for sailfish

We've been talking to a manufacturer in Australia about a collection of fishing kites they design and sell mostly in the Pacific rim and Brazil. We're currently building a relationship with them that will bring them -- as a product specifically available from TheOnlineFisherman.com -- to American waters.

Our Florida Keys master guide and general all-around cool-guy Greg Poland is using them -- as are a few of the other incredible captains we have there -- for Sailfish and the huge Kingfish that prowl their waters.

But the kites were first designed to aid the thousands of Australians whose passion is surf fishing. This means that there's a very broad range of opportunities for the kite in the Keys (Poland says they're far better then anything he's used, and kites are a mainstay to the pros fishing the Keys' reefs; dropping live bait from a kite kit (two, actually, with two lines per on some boats) makes for an irresistible presentation to sailfish, for sure, with king macks a close second predator taking quick notice of live baits splashing around as if held by the hand of a friendly God.

Fishing them from the surf opens doors all over the northeast; from Long Island through the beaches of New Jersey all the way down to South Carolina, sports men and women fish the surf. Kites like the ones from Caught in Flight give them all a way to put baits -- including the right kind of artificial (soft baits come to mind?) 200, 300, or more yards from where they're sitting in the sand is a world we've never encountered here in the states. At least not to any degree and not that we've ever read about.

If you do know of people using kites to surf fish anywhere, please let us know.