Taxidermist takes on Tina Tuna

Taxidermist Kevin Flutey with the 2.7m tuna he will turn into a work of art. Picture / Alan Gibson

A Tauranga taxidermist has the job of converting a fish as big as a cow into a work of art.

Kevin Flutey has specialised for 15 years in preparing, stuffing and mounting dead marine creatures with lifelike effect.

Now he faces his biggest challenge - a 268kg bluefin tuna which took five men to haul it on board a 15m boat off the South Island's West Coast two weeks ago.

At 2.7m, "the one that didn't get away" is longer than the 1.9m tall Mr Flutey, who has nicknamed it Tina Tuna.

"It's a hell of a big fish. It's the size of a cow," said the Nelson business broker who caught it, Michael Hayes.

Using a soft squid plastic lure and fishing with a 60kg breaking-strain line about 50km west of Greymouth, he thought he was going to be dragged overboard during a two-hour battle.

Mr Hayes is still waiting for the results of DNA testing to determine whether it is a Pacific or a southern bluefin. It will take longer to confirm if it is a new International Game Fishing Association record.

The whopper - age unknown - was frozen in Greymouth and reached Tauranga this week. Yesterday Mr Flutey was still waiting for the bulk of the body to defrost, while keeping the tail end iced.

He must ensure the fish does not deteriorate before he makes the important fibreglass mould, probably starting tomorrow and taking about four days.

The real work is the preparation and the painting, Mr Flutey says. Any imperfections have to be smoothed over and, working from photographs, the skin colours matched as naturally as possible.

The flesh will be chopped up for burley.

In all, Mr Flutey will spend about 70 hours on the job in his Art of Fish workshop in rural Oropi and hopes to have the trophy finished by the end of November.

The 20kg hollow replica will go on the wall of Mr Hayes' game fishing club at Whangaroa near the Bay of Islands, where he keeps his boat.

As an amateur, Mr Hayes could not sell the tuna to the high-paying Japanese market.

As for all that wasted meat, Mr Flutey, himself a keen angler, said: "You can either eat tuna for three months or look at it for a lifetime."