2005 was when i was down there, our biggest was 277kg caught on a copy of Pakula sprocket in Blue/white/red.
we never trolled more than 2 lures at once and quite often had 2 on at once,
the good and the bad about lures is,
more hook-ups around the middle of the ship and the net was still down,
we lost at least half of those fish to the cables, you could tell by the grease on the line.
you need a side scan to see if any fish are swimming under or along side of the ship,
you got a couple of shots as the net come up,
then you had a few more go's when about 15 to 20mins later when blood and guts come out the side shoot, the seals would be right there when this happened and the tuna under them,
we hooked a couple of Makos in the 150 to 175kg class on the lures as well between ships but also 3 or 4 Tuna,
we sleeped at night because we found we hooked seals all the time when fishing at night,
but what we didnt realize was the tuna were under the boat when we got up in the morning, once we new this we would put the lures out as soon as the boat started moving and bingo hook ups straight off,
the skipper later rang me after we had returned to AK and said they now cubed the Tuna under the boat first thing in the morning,
but they were having trouble to get them to take a baited hook,
his main reason for ringing was to tell me he had seen the Largest ever Est: 500kg plus swimming right around and under the boat for over 15mins no other Tuna would come near the boat while it was feeding,
so who knows how big ours grow...
this is the boat we fished off, West Coast Commercial boat, shame the skipper has passed away, RIP.
The rear end of a Hoki ship with cables going into the sea,
side view of a ship as we trolled passed it, notice the slots just above the water line, this is where some of the scraps come out,
a double hook up a long way from the ships one is on 6okg the other on 37kg.
this squid lure was huge in size think it was a Boone Teaser but even it worked,
just to prove it wasn't suck in the fishes mouth here is photo from the underwater footage i took of the trip, remember this is 10years ago, i was filming under water footage long before most TV programs were doing it..
you can see the lure near the top of the pic.
on that trip i caught this one which was a World record at the time,
which has been way surpassed now...
Thanks for everything you did for us Eric. may you rest in peace, You were one of the real legends of NZ recreational fishing