KEY POINTS:
An American angler who flew here to catch a big broadbill swordfish managed a rare grand slam.
His 166.6kg broadbill was not particularly big by New Zealand standards but prior to hooking that he had caught a 130kg striped marlin and tagged and released a blue marlin estimated
at 280kg.
There are rumours of this having been done once before but noted anglers, including Geoff Thomas and Rick Pollock, could not recall it happening in the past 30 years and there are no official records of it occurring before.
In Zane Grey's day they would have achieved many doubles on marlin, but did not fish deep for broadbill nor at night, when most are caught.
Angler Park Berolzheimer, the CEO of a family-owned business, booked the charter boat Primetime for a week. He'd caught bigger blues than the one he got here and a black over 400kg but the broadbill fishery in other parts of the world is seriously depleted and catches rarely get over 100kg.
After five days of poor weather and poor fishing, the three fish were caught on the second-last day of his trip. The two landed were to be mounted, one for his office, one for his home.
The boat White Witch was also fishing the Kings at the time and hooked three large stripeys in one day. But catches have been patchy and skippers report the King Bank now down to 16C, the Middlesex bank absolutely dead despite 19C.
Berolzheimer is one of an increasing number of American anglers flying here to target broadbill. They have usually fished South Africa, Venezuela and other areas but are after the huge fish and here they grow to 400kg.
Concern is that the broadbill are being targeted by commercial fishermen, especially Australians who are either outside New Zealand waters or fishing with New Zealand-leased quota. But the local broadbill "by-catch" for surface longliners has increased too.
These boats are supposedly fishing for tuna but use lightsticks, which attract broadbill.
The Australians are allowed to take and land marlin - anyone commercial fishing in New Zealand waters must return marlin to the water, dead or alive.
The increase in surface long-lining brings with it an increase in bird deaths, particularly of albatross. The Australians apparently weight the birds they pull off the line so the dead bodies sink and cannot be seen or recorded by anyone or photographed by fisheries enforcement over-flights.
At times the long-liners, which may have gear in the water for up to 12 hours, lose as much as half their catch to sharks and killer whales which follow the main line or backbone to feed continuously - a huge wastage of fish.
Rumour has it the Aussies shoot troublesome killer whales. In the Far North there are fears that the Australian behaviour in relation to other sea life is spreading here.
Broadbill provide a minute part of New Zealand's billion-dollar fisheries export returns. Few people here eat it, some citing mercury fears. It sells for as little as $6kg. It would be far better to let those Yanks come down and catch them on rod and reel.
One charter skipper told me this week that he'd had a customer who went heli-fishing for trout and shooting wapiti in the South Island before flying to Houhora by helicopter for a week's game fishing aiming for broadbill while his wife toured and shopped. On the last day, the angler put off his planned drive south for an extra night's fishing. So he had to helicopter back to Auckland next day to meet his flight home at an added cost of $8000 - which brought his all-up spend for two weeks in New Zealand to $230,000.
Industry has appealed the High Court decision on kahawai. The recreational groups that won their case to force the Fisheries Minister to review his quota management decision are determining their response.
During a week in Brisbane with the Kiwis and watching NRL in Sydney, I was struck by our luck. I went to fishing clubs in both cities - anything over 2kg can get you a pin-fish. At the Parkway Pirates club in Frenchs Forest, 2.2kg is the biggest kingfish landed this summer. That's not a legal fish here.
Snapper continue to inhabit the upper Waitemata harbour. Beach fishers in Northland are doing well in the evenings. Lots of big snapper were taken by kite-fishers and those who got to the 30-40 metre mark off the west coast during the recent northeasterlies.
