Thanks everyone. We kept this one. A little bit of panic after pulling it back from its two hundred metre run across two kelp coated bombies. So the gaff went in. Released the next one (which looked almost as big in the pics but we called it five to six kilos). Josh didn't even stop fishing when I hooked it - he was that pessimistic about me landing it.
Fish was hooked on a blind drift with the FBI fly down deep. I had just teased a big fish with my huge rooster fly and lost a massive kahawai (that looked all of six kilos) as well as ripping the hook on something else very big (I called it four a good trevally Josh reckoned a big snapper). Everything went quiet after that so I picked up the smaller fly and rod and tried a deeper drift slightly further down the rocks.
Hook up was like snagging a moving rock. Just heaps of unstoppable weight that turned into a howling screaming run straight out to sea. The drag was set fairly light and I lost a lot of backing. There was no point putting pressure on until it stopped because there were rocks and kelp between me and the fish. It just went and went.
When it slowed I retrieved as hard as I could with as much pressure as possible. There was a couple of worrying moments with the fish down in the kelp. And the fish powered down a few more times when I finally started to get colour. Some very anxious moments followed. Luckily the hook held and the fish didn't manage to crush it or bite the leader. Finally got it. Very stoked
. But it would have been more sensible to hook it on the twelve weight!