A customer has asked me to build him a set of 4 "kite" rods to be used with Shimano TLD-30's for sailfish. I've never built a specific "kite" rod. I'm looking for recommendations - length of the rod; "action" of the rod; any recommendations for blank. Any/all suggestions welcome.

Ken, A kite rod is basically a rod approx 3' in length very stiff with 1 guide and a tip. Now if you are looking for a rod for the TLD's then just build a live bait rod for the lb. line he will be using. For the sailfish a fast tip is always good with good backbone in the rod. About 6.5 to 7" long. That is my suggestion. Scott

Are you talking about the rods that fly the kite or the rods to be clipped to the kite ?

If it is the kite flier, 3' and stout, all it is doing is flying a kite.

If it is the other, then you'll be looking for a 7' fast tip live bait blank. I like the Super Seeker CLBF706.

You could fly the kite off the reel itself, but generally you need to something to hold the reel and get the line away from the rod mount, thus, a short rod with nothing more than a reel seat, gimbal, and tiptop. A cut-off butt section from a light boat rod or medium duty trolling rod easily suffices. Most don't even have grips, although f you give it some thought, you might just be able to improve upon the commercially available kite rods in some way.

Because they mentioned the TLD's, however, I doubt they want the kite rods - Most people don't use such reels to fly kites. They pick an old Penn 9 or something. I think they want the rods that will be used to fight the fish. These can be standard sailfish rods such as you'd use to cast and fish for sailfish. 6 to 7 feet, fast action.

...........

K is two letters before the M

For this one as the newspaper add says:

Read All About It!

[knol.google.com]#

Ken,
Here is a link. Use a 20 or 30 class blank and a trolling top with a unibutt and you are done. They do attach TLD's as well as Penn Internationals to them. Up here the guys that are using them wouldn't be caught dead with an old reel or anything that doesn't shine of gold on their boat. These guys are fishing in 500,000 to $1,500,000 tournaments every month so money isn't the object.


Ken, I have a couple of these rods sitting at the shop........ I think. Email me if you want to come over the bridge and see them
Here is the link to the Bass Pro Shops rod. If you got the "offshore angler" catalog this week, its on page 92 with the penn international on it. The one in the magazine is only 12 " long after the unibutt.
[www.basspro.com]
Email me.
Kevin Knox
kevin_a_knox@yahoo.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/2008 10:57PM by kevin knox.

Thank you all. These are not the rods that fly the kite but those that ultimately fight the fish. This is a customer for whom I have built (and rebuilt/reconditioned) custom rods for in the past. He purchased a new boat (52 footer). He asked me to outfit the boat with rods (full range) to match the boat colors /name etc. The only rods that I had a question about were those that fly off the kites. I assumed (based on the targeted species - sails) that they would be "limber" - that is "light trolling / live bait type" rods but I needed to have that confirmed. Since I am committed to a full set I may suggest to him that other rods that I am already building may fit the need. As Kevin wrote above - money is not at issue. This is a tournament boat (ie: Internationals abound aboard) but the captain is a man who wants 'the right tool for the job'.

Kevin - where is "over the bridge"?

====================
Special thanks to Bill Stevens for the dictionary lesson. "P"(rofessional ... advice) comes 5 letters after K (the article speaks of technique not the rod type or design). LOL!

The fighting rods for this type fishing won't be stand-up or heavy trolling types, but rather longer and faster tipped rods as mentioned above. You may indeed find a live bait type blank that would fill the bill for this.

....................

The fighting rods for this type fishing won't be stand-up or heavy trolling types, but rather longer and faster tipped rods as mentioned above. You may indeed find a live bait type blank that would fill the bill for this. Or, even a Hot Shot blank. But I'd look first at anybody's general 7' saltwater fast action blanks.

....................

Thanks Tom (and everyone else) -
I think I'm going to go with FORECAST SWB76ML's for this application. Light & fast but with the "shock absorbancy" of glass - These are supposed to be "fun fishing rods" (that is family use not tournament) and because I have them in inventory. They're a little long perhaps for this application even on a large boat so I'll trim them back to fit. Also these will fill a 'gap' in the other rods that I'm already building (light trolling, heavy trolling, jigging - and I can talk with the customer about considering these set up as spinning rods rather than with the TLDs