When kite fishing for sailfish, many accessories are needed in your arsenal to increase your efficiency and productivity. Kite choices for different winds and weight above your live bait are all needed and knowing whats best to use comes from experience. However, Kite fishing float choices should be a relatively easy choice. The kite float serves one main purpose when a bait is being fished from a kite and that is to help you identify where your line is and the line angle above your live bait.
Three popular choices are the Oval, Cigar and Weighted Cork or Bobber.
Captain Randy Yates of the Miss Annie who fishes live bait regularly out of Palm Beach and Lake Worth Inlet prefers the pink oval kite float for the simple fact that he finds it easy to see. “I’ll use any of them but find the oval easy to see but I don’t like using the weighted Cork. Because conditions change frequently throughout the day and the amount of weight we use above the leader is changing as a result. It’s much easier to change out a 1/2 ounce lead to a full ounce when the winds pick up versus changing out weighted corks all the time,” says Yates.
Here is the cigar float with a stainless ring on top, weight, bead and rubber band below. Probably the most widely used set-up by professional crews.
Another experienced Palm Beach area Captain, Joe Stansky says he doesn’t have a float preference. “I’ll use whatever the local tackle store has in stock or whatever we have in the tackle drawer. If its nice out I won’t even use a float,” says Stansky. Like Yates, Stansky is not a big fan of the weighted corks. “I like the oval or cigar style floats, it doesn’t matter as long as I can see the lines,” says Stansky.
Both captains agree that toothy critters will sometimes attack a float trailing around a hooked fish and the kite ribbon tape tends to get more critter bites than any float and the captains generally don’t use it.
So what is the most popular kite float today? Pink Cigar or Pink Oval?
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- Cigar Float, Pink is very popular
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- The Oval Float is a good choice because it is easily seen.
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- Pink and Red are most popular choices
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- The least favorite by professional captains is the weighted float
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- Here is the cigar float with a stainless ring on top, weight, bead and rubber band below. Probably the most widely used set up by professional crews.
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- The oval float quiver
What is the purpose of the black rubber band ?
It’s to help you adjust the height of your float over the kite bait. If it gets rough you can slide the float up and if it gets calm you slide the float down on your leader or wind-on. Hope that helps!