Biggest Gamefish so Far

By - John Eichelsheim. The $10,000 Pacific Invader Charters-sponsored insured prize for the biggest game shark over 90kg was well and truly taken out by the team on Marcella with a 458.5kg monster at the Gisborne-Tatapouri Marlin-Tuna Tournament. Marcella, a forty-foot alloy catamaran, had steamed up from its home port of Castlepoint a couple of days earlier to fish the Gisborne tournament.  An eight hour haul in unpleasant southerly conditions. On board was a crew of keen, mostly Wairarapa, anglers including some very experienced shark fishers, but the majority had never caught anything larger than cod or groper.

Such was the case with Neville Clarke who took the rod once the big fish hit. Neville, a slightly-built Ohakune forestry supervisor and a big fish virgin, was the designated angler in a well-organised team where each crew member was allocated a task according to his experience.

Thus Marcella's owner and skipper, Ralph Wilton, took the helm; big shark veteran, Alister Reid, was tactician and chief gaff man (as well as helping Ralph at the wheel), Alan Schofield, the biggest crew member, took responsibility for wiring the fish, and Robin Britt was second gaff man.

It all started when they decided to stop trolling and try to catch a shark instead. A berley trail of chopped tuna and starfish berley certainly did the trick, as they soon boated a mako shark that looked as though it would go close to 110kg. In the next hour they had several more sharks in the berley, but they held off in the hope of a bigger one.

Suddenly, the smaller fish disappeared to be replaced by a monster mako they first called at 250kg-plus (an estimate they continually revised upwards as the ensuing fight progressed).

The strike and hook-up was copy-book: the fish took the whole albacore bait without hesitation, Neville let it swallow the bait, then pushed the lever on the Shimano Tiagra 50 LRS to strike. The Composite Sports 37kg stand-up rod bent to the task and the crew went into action, firing up the boat and following the hooked fish. It was 2pm.

Conscious of the size of the fish (confirmed by a series of jumps and broaches early on), Alister and the boys determined they would stay close and not let the beast get too much 37kg fluoro line in the water. At no time was there more than 200m off the reel and the boys soon got into a smooth routine.

After a couple of hours a pattern began to emerge: the fish would come to the surface, sometimes broaching, often swimming quietly, before sounding deep where it would stay for up to an hour before repeating the process.

Their initial jubilation and excitement dissipated somewhat as time went on and sea conditions deteriorated with a rising nor-easter. By late afternoon they became a little discouraged. Every time the fish surfaced or jumped it looked bigger, and each time it dived, they seemed unable to make any impression on it. Regular VHF updates from Marcella not only reported ever-larger estimates of the shark's size; they also unintentionally communicated the crew's sinking spirits.

The crisis came as darkness approached. Now seven hours into the fight, Neville's arms were cramping badly, sea conditions had become very nasty and the boat was twenty-odd miles further out to sea from where the fish was hooked. Not anticipating operating at night, Marcella was not rigged with a spotlight and the prospect of dealing with such a lump of lethal muscle in the dark was really knocking the crew's confidence.

The fish continued its dive-then-surface pattern: the only glimmer of hope was that the time spent down deep was a little shorter and the runs away from the boat marginally slower.

Help was at hand, too, from Hawkes Bay charter launch Back-up, which offered assistance with lighting and fuel (fuel reserves had become short during the protracted battle). The boys on Marcella discussed their options and decided, should the fight go on into the night, they would back off the drag, take on fuel from Back-up and follow the fish until daylight.

In the hour or so until dark, they decided to 'go for broke', rigging a temporary spotlight and upping the drag from 12kg to 14kg. Shortly afterwards, in fading light, it was upped again to a punishing 16kg. This, finally, seemed to break the fish's back. Its last couple of dives were reasonably short and suddenly Marcella's crew felt as though they had a chance.

The end, when it came, was almost an anti-climax. In darkness and 2.5m seas, Alan grabbed the wire and Alister leaned over and placed the first of three flying gaffs in an act of faith, as the jury-rigged spotlight wouldn't reach far enough to illuminate the water beside the boat. His gaff shot was a 'stab in the dark', so to speak, but successful. The other gaffs went in, then the choker, and finally the huge fish was secured alongside.

It was 9.45pm and they had been hooked up for seven and three-quarter hours.

Needless to say, the crew were ecstatic, not so much because of the prize money, but because they had overcome, as a team, one of the most awesome creatures in the sea. Neville reports he was shaking all over, and when he tried to drink a beer - something he had been fantasising about for hours - he couldn't finish half of it, he was so strung out.

But it wasn't quite over yet. They still had to get the giant fish back to Gisborne. Unable to drag the mako aboard, they had no option but to steam back to port with it roped alongside. This meant a very slow trip, but finally at 2.15am they docked at the clubhouse in Gisborne to the applause of more than a few hardy souls who had stayed back to witness their arrival. There was little sleep that night for the crew, tournament officials and the many well-wishers who celebrated with them!

In the morning the fish proved too heavy for the gantry and a crane had to be found in order to weigh it. Marcella's huge mako pulled the scales down to 458.5kg (1010 pounds), a great effort on 37kg line, a bona fide 'grander', and the biggest fish to be weighed in New Zealand for some years. It was just short (about 5kg) of the New Zealand record.

The fish was displayed at the weigh-in on the last day, drawing most of Gisborne's population and featuring that evening on TV One's news.

Gisborne-Tatapouri Club intend to have the fish mounted and displayed in their clubrooms. The crew of Marcella is $10,000 richer and Neville gets to keep the jaws.