Catching huge Swordfish in New Zealand

With Swordfish on my mind, when a weather window opened up, I quickly called up my mates Kurt and Chris and made a plan. I dropped into Top Catch Whangaparoa to grab some sword bait before heading home from work.

Once home, the boys and I packed up the boat and we drove North to the boat ramp where we planned to catch some shut eye before heading out the next day. We towed my 750 @offshoreboatsnz so between that and the ute there was plenty of sleeping space for us all.

The lads had not caught a Sword before so spirits were high and we were all hopeful. We woke early and shot out wide. Once we arrived we noticed the spot looked very fishy. We marked Sword on the top and lots of bait on the sounder. We quickly stitched the squid up and sent it down. We got the bite straight away and the line went tight. It was so quick! The boys couldn't even beleive me that we were hooked up. I saw the bite come on so quickly. It is so exciting to see when the rod bends over. Kurt was up and he quickly had the fish up to the surface and not long after I had the leader in my hand. We quickly got the tag in and shook the bkk circle hook out. It was perfect. The Sword swam off like nothing had happened. Still full of energy. I think if it had come up and back down again it would have been around a 3 plus hour fight. I estimated this sword to be around 200 kgs.

After a quick celebration we stitched another bait up and sent it down. Not long after we had a good tap on the rod. It went quiet so we got the bait up and sure enough squid had big slash. We changed the bait to another fresh squid and sent it down again. We had another bite within 10 minutes and it was a good one. Then the Daiwa saltiga game rod bent and we cranked the reel and it was tight. After a short fight we had this one in. It was estimated at 80kg and the boys wanted to to keep this one for dinner. We got this sword up on the boat and put it straight into kill bag with salt ice.

2-2-2 on this Sword trip. The guys were stoked to have ticked this species off their list.

#fishing #gamefishing #adventure