Fishing: Big billfish don't give up without a struggle

Huge billfish are in New Zealand waters this summer, and some are showing too much fight for anglers to handle.

At Mercury Bay, two boats suffered damage when trying to land blue marlin in the 300kg range, and Te Atatu fisher Mark Brame found out just how powerful these fish are when he got hold of one off Whangaroa.

Fishing with buddies Alan Stratton and charter skipper Bruce Kearney aboard Utter Chaos they experienced something close to that. It was a beautiful calm day trolling out from Whangaroa when a short-billed spearfish came into their lures. Then the blue popped up, shouldering the spearfish aside and hit the lure with such a frenzy that he both hooked and wrapped himself, with the hooks in his eye.

The fish stayed on the surface for the whole 1 1/2 hour fight.

"He must have done aerials 70 times," Brame said.

When brought to the boat it tried to dive under and cut the line. When the boat was put in gear and moved forward, the fish came up and was gaffed.

It took off with a flip and straightened out the flying gaff head. They still had the leader, and so Brame grabbed the bill.

"He picked me up and dragged me straight into the railing."

The fish then flipped his head and flipped Brame, 45, back to the deck.

For 20 minutes the trio battled to get the big blue subdued and strapped to the boat. Brame fell again and ended up with severely bruised ribs and back.

"We would never have held it if the sea wasn't calm," he said. "When he thrashed his head around there was no way we could hold it."

There have been instances both here and more particularly overseas where anglers or deck hands have been dragged overboard to their deaths by fish that size. For that reason, the pros who deal with the billfish on charter boats always carry two line cutters: a knife and pliers.