Fish of a lifetime

Whangamata Ocean Sports Club member, Brooke Shanley, has a pending New Zealand record on her hands after she pulled in a massive 370kg black marlin off Whangamata.

After a day out with nothing to show for it, Brooke and her group decided they might as well stop and try to get a kingfish.

It had been a really nice hot day, with good conditions, and the group went into an area between the Aldermans and Whangamata where you can normally get a kingfish.

“We’d been gone for many hours and not caught anything,” she says.

“I mean it's quite common to not come back with anything when you're out game-fishing, well for me anyway.”

When one of the rods went off, Brooke initially thought they had just caught some more seaweed.

“Then all of a sudden this huge marlin came flying out of the water, and so obviously it got quite serious for a bit,” she says.

“We were thinking it was around the hundred kilo mark. Then it did a few more jumps, which is when we realised it was actually a lot bigger. Then we saw its head, and how big it actually was.”

Unfortunately, the fish headed straight to the bottom, and Brooke says it was clear it had died.

“This made it very hard, because during this whole time it was so choppy and windy that we were trying hard to not go over the top of the line. We almost did twice – it was very stressful, there was quite a bit of yelling,” she says.

“Then Dad could see on the sounder something decent at the bottom of the seafloor, and it was obviously the fish. So then I had to just try really hard to just winch it up basically, so I spent quite some time on it. It got to the point where I was almost not able to do it.”

Brooke spent just over three hours on the fish.

“I think it was probably the last 45 minutes to an hour just winding tiny bits at a time, just trying to get some in and just trying to not let it snap, and I was also at the same time very worried that a shark was going to get it,” she says.

“Then finally it started to raise a bit and then I started to get more and more in every time, and then it's head came up to the surface.

“We got it to the boat and then my dad, my brother-in-law and our cousin were trying to heave it on the boat, but it was too big to fit through. They could not physically get it on after trying and trying and trying.

“Then I saw a shark swimming out behind us, zigzagging towards us, and there were all these birds flying around… so they just put another gaff in it and tied it on, and we just had to take off!”

The group ended up towing the fish the whole way, taking up to two hours to get in.

Brooke said she was in absolute shock when the fish was pulled out of the water at the weigh station.

“I still didn't actually know how big it was because we hadn't seen its whole body, so it was a pretty big shock when it started getting lifted,” she says.

“I couldn't really believe that I’d managed to wind it in. Even my mum said she couldn’t believe it. I think most people there to be honest were pretty shocked.

“Dad was pretty speechless. He’s a big fisherman, and has caught lots of marlin and tuna and all sorts of stuff, but he's never caught a black marlin. No-one I know has ever caught a black marlin.

“It was a pretty amazing once in a lifetime thing for me.”

Brooke’s 370kg catch is a pending New Zealand women’s record.

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