The special events
that stay with us
foralifetime
A DAY TO
REMEMBER
A world record swordfish
You never know what’s going to jump on when you put a bait in the water,
and sometimes the result can be quite startling. Such was the case when
Nicky Sinden and her film crew set out off New Zealand to record a TV
show about tagging swordfish.T
here is no doubt in my mind that some fish
choose us.
My crew and I have had our eye on a
particular broadbill swordfish record for some
time, and in the days leading up to our fishing trip I
had prepared everything ready to target it. I printed
off all the paperwork, quadruple-checked that all our
gear conformed with the IGFA rules and did a little
prayer to the fishing gods.
We were on deadline to get an episode of my New
Zealand TV fishing show through to the network,
so when our weather window closed into a singleAUTHOR: NICKY SINDEN PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDY FARRANTday I made the decision to postpone chasing the
record and instead use a much heavier line class that
would give us more chance to record a show in our
small timeframe. Our plan was to tag and release a
swordfish, hopefully getting some epic footage of it
swimming away with a tag in its side.
The film crew and I have caught swords in the past,
but we hadn’t fished out of Whangaroa targeting
them, so we caught up with Captain Phil from
Bluewater Adventures and he offered to show us
where he’d been catching them. With Dave Woodman
at the helm and Matt Haliday as crewman, we hit the
water feeling very positive about the day ahead of us.FAST ACTION
My tackle was a Shimano Talica 50 spooled with 100lb
PowerPro Hollowace braid spliced onto a topshot of
37kg Suffix mono. Matt stitched a two-hook rig into
a Salty Dog arrow squid, added a few lights and a
break-away reo bar to get it down to 600m ... and on
the second drop we were hooked-up!
To me there is nothing more exciting than a bite from
a swordfish. My heart races and imagination churns as
the gimbal and harness go on and the drag is pushed up.
I’ve learnt from catching swords in the past that
most of the time you’re playing a long game, so
patience is the key. Initially we’d rushed swordfish and
fought them like marlin, but that cost us the first nine
swordfish before we changed our tactics and started
catching them consistently. These days I know to get
my blood pressure under control and get my mind set
for what could be a long fight. Although I’ve had eight
sword battles around the 1.5-hour mark, my trick is
to mentally prepare myself for a six-hour battle, so
anything under that feels brief.RISE THEN PLUMMET
This fish followed the classic swordfish battle plan of
rising to the surface when hooked, then plummeting
straight back to the bottom, taking hundreds of metres
of line with it. With the heavy tackle I didn’t want to
give this fish any respite, so I pushed the drag lever
up to ‘Sunset’ within the first five minutes of the fight.
I figured that if the fish was foul-hooked and going to
disconnect, or was going to regurgitate the bait and
hook, I’d rather lose it early in the battle so I still had
time to get another bait down during bite time.
I was hard into it and gaining line consistently when,
from the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a whaleNicky Sinden’s
IGFA Women’s
world record
swordfish on
60kg tackle was
caught quite
unexpectedly
while she was
filming an
episode for her
New Zealand TV
fishing show.66 facebook.com/BlueWatermagazine