This year my annual pilgrimage to the Three Kings Islands was aboard Steve and Julie Haddocks charter boat “Zambucca”. I have always thought of Zambucca as being about the ideal for heading into the wild blue yonder, it’s size and tons of fishing room really ring all my bells, so I was delighted to be finally loading up on her one blustery Wednesday afternoon in early May.

The weather looked a little dicey for the first day or so, but a huge high was heading our way, so we were all sure things could only but improve. Staying on the wharf for the night we had a mission set us by Steve... to catch as many live bait mackerels as we could. One very nice sideline to this was that we would be able to also have a crack at landing a few john dory... perhaps the best eating fish in NZ.

Mangonui would have to be J.D. central, as over the three or four hours we were messing about with them, we managed to pop 20 of these tasty fish into the ice-box, at the same time loading up the live-bait tank with mackerel. Normally catching J.D.s is a simple matter of some live baits and patience, but no, this was not the way our second skipper, Carl, did it.

Carl’s idea of the perfect JD lure is a 3m long gaff... as soon as Carl saw a fish, he would whip out the gaff, and Blammo! another hapless JD would be flapping in the box. Talk about hands-on fishing!

Calling it quits at around midnight, we awoke next morning to find Mangonui glassy calm... excellent! Sadly though, as soon as we cleared the sheltered harbour, a sloppy sea from the east started to kick up. We trolled all day without joy, before finally ending up anchoring the night at Spirits Bay.

For the next 24 hrs, the wind kept on humming through at about 25 knots, too rough by far to make it to the Kings, so when it dawned calm and still on Saturday morning, we were off like a shot for those distant isles.

Heading along the 100m line heading north-west for the Kings, it was not long before we were into some action.The water temp nudged up from a rather cool 18 degrees to a healthier 20, when the big Purple and Black Big T marlin lure was smacked. Hauling in the lure to check it showed the scuff marks typical of a Marlin strike... hmmm, strike one!

By now several other boats were in the same area as us, the radio crackling with skippers calling in strikes and sightings of marlin around their boats. We were in a Marlin “bubble”, but sadly weren’t able to spend to long working the area, we were on our way out of the hotspot when again a reel screamed into life.

This time there was no doubt as to the fish... a Marlin leapt from the wake behind us. This fish proceeded to bounce around the sea for a fair while, with Steve Greaves of Christchurch getting strapped into a harness to work on it.

With the combination of good skippering and hard pulling on the 24kg Penn stand-up rod and reel we soon had this feisty little (85kg) fish to the boat. After the regulation photos, Steve G. opted to have the fish tagged and released, well done mate!

We headed on, needing to get to the Three Kings in decent time, although the billfish were still active behind us. Stopping only for a short but very productive stint of bottom fishing at “the Fingers”, we finally reached Southeast bay at the Kings at around 7 PM.

Steve had us heading out for the Kings Bank before dawn the next morning, it being quite a haul to get there, where we were looking forward to getting into some of New Zealand’s hottest bottom fishing action. Once on the shallower banks, we were soon into some heavy fish action... tarakihi, trevally, all good, if not electrifying, fish.

There were better fish there though, with several respectable kingfish in the 30-40lb range coming in, all of which were being released. One skilful, strong, good looking yet modest angler managed not only a hard fighting 100lb Bass, but also a pretty decent 60lb Hapuka in successive drops. ... gosh I’m good!

After only an hour or two, we had filled up the Zambuccas slurry tank, probably a good 50 or 60 big tarakihi, with a dozen or so trevally scattered among them, and several hapuku and bass awaiting the filleters knife besides. This was enough fish for anyone, so we cruised off, this time heading across from the Kings Bank, aiming for the Middlesex Bank to the West.

We had a shot over the Middlesex for some more bottom fish, again filling the slurry box with even larger Tarakihi, fish of around 7-8 lbs or so, but now decisions had to be made.

We had a couple of options, one was to head back to an anchorage at the Kings, then hit kingies all next day, or head out even wider, and spend the night drift fishing for broadbill. It was so calm, really there was no doubt about the choice.... broadbill it was to be!

Heading out, as the sun set on the calm sea, was a magic feeling. Beyond sight of land, we could have been anywhere in the world, it was great. We finally reached the marks Steve had for his deepwater spot after dark, and after a relaxed meal, set about putting out our baits.

Now, the chances of actually getting a broadbill are, well, pretty slim really. In all my other trips,  we have had sharks, lotsa them, but no sign of a broadbill, so my hopes for success we not exactly high.. still, I was keen to have another larrup.

After setting the baits, relaxing, prolonged nibbles etc it was about 10.30 before I headed to bed, leaving the first 3 guys to share the first shift on the rods. Until then we had been hit once by something, only the faintest of touches, but enough to remove one of the baits, so after this was re-rigged, I collapsed in my bunk until my shift in the wee small hours.

I had my head down for about ten minutes, when feet thudded over my head, as several guys ran to the bow. Sensing the chance of some excitement, I got up and started for the deck. I was only just reaching the door, when Carl yelled “BROADBILL!!!! Steve! Steve! Broadbill!!” Mate, you never seen a bunch of fishos reach the deck so fast.

What had happened, at about 10.35, was the deep baits’ reel, a Penn 80STW, ticked gently off about half a metre of line. Curious, Carl wandered over to see what was going on. Finding the line slack, Carl wound in line, suspecting the rig had been “sharked”. To his surprise, the line was moving slowly forward, so he wound up the slack line, walking forward as he went.  

Once at the bow, he wound the swivel up to the rod tip, and leaned over to see what was going on below. There, sitting on the surface of the water 3 metres below his feet, was a massive Broadbill! I was on deck in time to see this huge beast slowly cruise along the side of Zambucca...with the exception of a whale shark in the Solomons last year, I have never seen such a massive fish.

Glyn Acraman was being bundled into a harness as the Swordfish slowly cruised off into the dark. Line melted slowly from the big gold 80wide reel, not making the slightest impact on the fish, slowly peeling off a couple of hundred metres of line before Steve started the big 1100hp  deisel of Zambucca, and turned the boat to follow the fish.

Now it was fairly easy to gain line, this fish was not worried in the least, it just didn’t know it was hooked up, that’s all. It is a little hard on the ego to know that with our heaviest gear, so far we had not even got this fishes attention! .

By now we knew we would be in for a long battle, mammoth fish just do not come in quickly. We would have liked a few hours to tire the fish a little, but this fella had different plans. To our considerable consternation, the fish turned and came straight back at us! Yikes! So, here we were with a very large fish, coming right at us, only ten minutes or so from “hook-up”! Uh-oh, this one was gonna come in hot!

The next few minutes seemed to last for hours, as the huge Swordfish ran once at the boat, then, as Steve surged Zambucca ahead to avoid having the fish tangle in the prop etc, it managed to get itself tail-wrapped... NOW it knew something was going on!

In several scything circles, the big Broadbill raced around on the surface, throwing out plumes of white water as it beat up the trace to free itself. Finally getting enough slack, it again ran at the boat. Again Steve  was forced to gun Zambucca ahead, as he did so he yelled “Everybody get a gaff! We’re only gonna get on shot at this &*^%$#$& fish, ...and when we hit it with those gaffs, guys, it’s gonna go Ballistic!”

After one more surge out wide, on the circle of the light, the fish turned about, and again came in hot alongside the boat. This time we were ready for it.. we thought.

First up, Carl slammed the flying gaff into the broad shoulder of the fish, next Steve Greaves slammed in the big 30cm fixed gaff, followed by a couple more large gaffs, all into the shoulder around the dorsal fin. Our skipper was right... the fish did go ape.

In a flurry of white water, Carl, Steve G, and Malcolm were hauled along the side of Zambucca. Skipper Steve leaned over, grabbing the rope on the flying gaff, allowing Carl to get slack line to repostion himself, all the time yelling out “Gaffs! Where are the rest of the gaffs!!” It seems, in the daze of the moment, several of the guys were just standing watching, with a couple of the biggest gaffs sitting in their holders.

Well, without the extra hooks into this fish, the inevitable happened.... first Malcolm had to let go his gaff as he was slammed to the side of the boat, on his way over the rail, next SteveG was pulled almost over, and as he had to let his gaff go, the flying gaff ripped from the shoulder of the powerfully thrashing beast. Somewhere in the melee, even worse, the line had become wrapped about one of the gaffs, and with a snap like a rifle shot, our last connection to this leviathon was gone. Gone. The Broadbill was gone.

We were gutted. What more can I say, I am sure you can all relate to how we felt. The silence was deafening as we all realised we had stuffed up a once in a lifetime chance. Oh, Bugger.

With immediate 20/20 hindsight, we all were able to point out what we did wrong, and how we could do it better... but all too late. Gone. Even as I write this, I shake my head and relive thirty seconds of the most intense action on a boat I have ever had, and the bitterest disappointment. Gone. BUGGER!!

We were all standing around the shattered remains of our egos, too stunned to do much else, when Mike Barlow yelled out “Here! Here it is, right here!!” Sure enough, not 3 metres from the side of Zambucca, the huge fish slowly cruised past the boat. In the vain hope that the fish would come close enough for another shot at a gaff, we surged to our few remaining gaffs, lining the rail as the big fish slowly circled us in the lights.

It was eerie, the way this monster from the deeps cruised unconcernedly around, and  under the hull of Zambucca, fractionally too far away for us to gaff... ooooh, mate! You have no idea of the mixture of emotions! From frustration to awe,we watched as this massive warrior of the deeps circled us once more, then slowly, casually, swam off into the night.

Xiphias Gladius, the broadbill swordfish is an incredible animal...and this time he beat up this sorry collection of fishos good and proper.

For the rest of the night, we drifted more baits, but the anticlimax of loosing this fish robbed us of much enthusiasm. Guys just sat around, staring into space, we all had a major case of the “If only’s”!

When Dawn came, we really were rather relieved. Now we were keen to head into the Islands, chasing something we were fairly sure we could handle! kingies! It was a long troll in to the Middlesex again, then on towards the Princes Rocks, our kingfish spot.

On the way, we related our tale to the other boats out there, the story of huge Broadbill enough to get Striker and Oversea’er to head out to try their own luck the next night. We would have loved to be able to do so as well, but our trip was almost over, we were due back in Mangonui the next day, we had run out of time.

We reached the Princes Rocks at around noon, and using a selection of dead squid, cut baits, and a few feeble small mackerel, managed to catch nothing at all for half an hour or so. Realising that we would need good bait to get into some fussy feeding kingfish,  we headed off to North-west Bay to anchor up for an hour or two to catch baits.

Finally anchored in the glassy calm bay, Carl burleyed up a mass of koheru behind the boat. These koheru are easily distinguishable from ordinary jack mackerel, by their blue backs. yellow tails and the bright yellow stripe along each flank... very colourful.

Using small silver grim reaper jigs, 7 and 13 gm ones working best, we soon had a good flow of these top live-baits coming aboard. Among the koheru were masses of pink and blue maomao, and it was not long before a couple of good kingies swam into view among these baitfish.

The temptation of seeing these marvellous fish cruising about was enough to have several of the boys grabbing live-bait rigs, and scoring a couple of our precious koheru, soon had baits swimming on their way to kingie lunchhood.

Glyn managed to land his, a nice 35lb fish, which once released, signalled the end to our stay at anchor. The day  wearing away, we headed back to our prime kingfish spot.

The difference of having good livies was immediately obvious. As soon as we got a bait down 50-80ft, they were being clobbered. Kingies, and big ones too. For the next two hours, until dusk, we all landed several great kingies, the pick of the bunch a prime 40 kilo beauty that Glyn managed to wrestle away from the rocks and cray pots. What a fish! Mike also picked up some very fat 70lb fish, the rest of us scoring well with 40-60 lb fish, even a snapper was picked up on a big kingies  live-bait. Awesome fishing.

As far as the fishing went, that was about it for us. Although we were keen to get into another marlin on the way home, none of us were really hell-bent on getting more fish... we had all had our fill of catching fish in 4 very frantic days at the Kings. Just to amuse ourselves that last night, we fed the seals at the main island the last of our live baits, which was also kinda fun.

Back at Mangonui, all our memories of the trip were coloured by our getting thrashed by that huge Xiphias Gladius, but none-the-less, we all had a truly great time, doing the Three Kings on Zambucca. Same again next year!

PS, as an aside, the next night, in the same spot as we had been, Striker landed one Broadbill, while Oversea’er got two! We listened to all this on the radio at anchor at the Kings.... frustrating? mate, what do you think!