Deep dropping and I hook something

[Larkin]

Gday Raiders!

Thursday was dead flat, so decided to try deep dropping out wide off the southern canyons. 

Caught a heap of slimies at the bait grounds which I then butterflied and sent down 400-450m.

First time out at this spot so didn’t know where to start. First area looked baron on the bottom, but decided to give it a go anyway - first drop a meter long 7 gill shark comes up. Second drop the baits were taken.

I move a kilometre away and I come onto a flat area at the bottom of a canyon - I set my sounder on bottom lock and can see schools of fish on the bottom 30m.

I drop down and hook up to something - as I’m bringing it up it started to feel really heavy, (Id say I was sharked at some point) then the line goes a little slack as it starts heading for the surface. I see fins on the surface - then splashing… and then a backflip! it was all on!! Hooked up to a 2-2.5m mako that had brought the fight. Fought for about 40mins back and forth until it tired & I had him down around 30m below - yanked the rod a few times to try and cut off - snapped the line and off it went. Wasn’t keen on having a large shark next to the ski. 

I retie my terminal and line up another drift. I see my rod start to dance a little, I feel it load up and then again it heads for the surface - it feels like a good fish. Reel is winding…half way up the rod starts dancing again then eases up again until it gets up to around 30-40m from the surface. From there it becomes apparent I’m hooked onto a monster. This fish just doesn’t want to come up any further and won’t show itself. I crank the drag to around 15kg and it just doesn’t stop - it’s decided it wants to go deep. It takes line all the way back down to 200-250m as I fight to gain line. I work over the next half an hour and get it back to within 50m - it sees the surface from below and says no thanks & heads back down. This time I crank up the drag to around 20kg and it dives down to the 300m mark and wants to keep going. I start clicking the star drag up even higher - pretty sure Ive cranked it to the max at 25kg - slowly it starts to come up - the reel is struggling, steam is coming off it and I can feel the drag is getting hot. I decide to try and retrieve as much line as I can & end the fight as it’s getting late in the day and I’ve been fighting this fish for and hour and a half. Wind’s also due to pick up in an hour or two and i don’t want to get stuck out wide in bad conditions. 

I work it up to 50m then put the ski in gear and try and break the line. It’s not breaking, so Im pretty much dragging this fish on a locked drag until it finally snaps. 

I do regret not getting a peak - but I think it would of needed another hour to finish the fight.

maybe a larger mako, maybe a big swordfish - or a different species of large shark. I’ll never know. I did put a camera down in the water when it was at its closest to the surface, but couldn’t see any fish on the footage. 
 

 

[Peter KH]

Insane, very brave, on a ski!

[XD351]

Not for a billion dollars could you get me out there on anything smaller than the QE2 at this time of year ! Big sharks and whales- no thank you 🤣🤣🤣

Awesome report Larkin!

[bessell1955]

That must have ben quite a fish?

[Little_Flatty]

The stuff nightmares are made of!

Looks like the taxman took more than his fair share this week. Amazing adventure, pictures and video all the same.

[big Neil]

You may lack the ability to stay out in the deep fighting big fish for hours on end, but you certainly don't lack the courage to try doing it. I can only imagine how challenging it would be to fish such depths from a jetski. You have my full admiration, that's for sure.

bn

[zmk1962]

Amazing adventure Chris. I think you deserve a “brazen and brave” badge for that effort - please don’t tell me you were fishing solo !!! … if so you may be in the running for another badge 🤔 … you know the one that starts with Darwin 😝

cheers Zoran 

Edited August 12 by zmk1962

[Green Hornet]

You can’t help but think that second fish was a broadbill, but that’s fishing I guess.

Great mako shots too.

[Yowie]

A bit of fun for you Chris, except, you do not want an angry mako near the ski. The other critter sounded like it was much larger.

An old fisho from Yowie Bay, long since passed on, used to fish outside in his half cabin boat. Hand line fisho. He hooked a decent sized mako one day, took a while to pull it to the boat, he saw it beside the boat and it leapt out of the water at him and all the way over the back of the boat. He ducked, the mako swam around the side of the boat then took another leap at him. He ducked again then cut the line. Change of underpants time he said.  🤣

Not trying to scare you, but they are a dangerous critter at any size.

Have had 2 makos at different times, both around the 6 foot mark, swim up beside my boat while fishing south of the bombie. So close that I could nearly pat them on the head.

[Robbo from Sydney]

5 hours ago, XD351 said:

Not for a billion dollars could you get me out there on anything smaller than the QE2 at this time of year ! Big sharks and whales- no thank you 🤣🤣🤣

Awesome report Larkin!

I am with you!!!!

[Larkin]

9 hours ago, Peter KH said:

Insane, very brave, on a ski!

Haha, was just planning on a day of deep dropping

5 hours ago, XD351 said:

Not for a billion dollars could you get me out there on anything smaller than the QE2 at this time of year ! Big sharks and whales- no thank you 🤣🤣🤣

Awesome report Larkin!

Yeah XD definitely some bigger critters out there

4 hours ago, bessell1955 said:

That must have ben quite a fish?

kept pulling hard and just wanted to go down deep

2 hours ago, big Neil said:

You may lack the ability to stay out in the deep fighting big fish for hours on end, but you certainly don't lack the courage to try doing it. I can only imagine how challenging it would be to fish such depths from a jetski. You have my full admiration, that's for sure.

bn

The fight was going well, But was 2pm and winds were predicted to go from 5-10klmh to 30-35klmh in an hour. Flat conditions though, but called it and headed back in.

2 hours ago, Little_Flatty said:

The stuff nightmares are made of!

Looks like the taxman took more than his fair share this week. Amazing adventure, pictures and video all the same.

Haha - was hoping for some deep water ooglies, but got some larger critters instead.

2 hours ago, zmk1962 said:

Amazing adventure Chris. I think you deserve a “brazen and brave” badge for that effort - please don’t tell me you were fishing solo !!! … if so you may be in the running for another badge 🤔😝

cheers Zoran 

Hi Zoran, this day I was going solo - conditions were really nice out there, swell was around 50-80cm, long wave period and low wind. Did have a cargo ship parked 600m away for company lol

I have Sat coms too, so can always make contact.

2 hours ago, Green Hornet said:

You can’t help but think that second fish was a broadbill, but that’s fishing I guess.

Great mako shots too.

This was the area I had pinned to try for a day sword in the future - right depth ect. If I hadn’t hooked a mako half an hour earlier that’s what I would have assumed it was - it just wanted to go deep after it came up on hook up. Would have kept going deeper than 300m if I hadn’t increased drag to almost 25kg. At this point I was at 500m depth.
 

Keen to know from others experience if makos fight deep like this?

Line was going straight down. No big runs - slowly pulling line deep. Very similar to how the marlin fought when it decided to go deep earlier this year.

51 minutes ago, Yowie said:

A bit of fun for you Chris, except, you do not want an angry mako near the ski. The other critter sounded like it was much larger.

An old fisho from Yowie Bay, long since passed on, used to fish outside in his half cabin boat. Hand line fisho. He hooked a decent sized mako one day, took a while to pull it to the boat, he saw it beside the boat and it leapt out of the water at him and all the way over the back of the boat. He ducked, the mako swam around the side of the boat then took another leap at him. He ducked again then cut the line. Change of underpants time he said.  🤣

Not trying to scare you, but they are a dangerous critter at any size.

Have had 2 makos at different times, both around the 6 foot mark, swim up beside my boat while fishing south of the bombie. So close that I could nearly pat them on the head.

Yeah I’m with you - don’t want a mako near me either. Was planning a quiet day of deep water fish - a blue eye cod or something like that. 

I’ve seen a 3-4 footer mako swim around me down coal cliff in the past and have also seen them backflip on the flatty drift a few times - but just small ones.

Edited August 12 by Larkin

[james Cutler]

Brave man. Super photos. Good to see you got home.

[whiskey299]

What an epic session. Shame you didn't see what that monster was.

We recently fished Browns and didn't come across anything as spectacular as this. 

What pound line are you running?

[BaitDropper]

Awesome effort !!

Would agree with Zoran, brazen and brave, to say the least.

We would quite often, fishing the west coast of NZ, get Mako's come up and start playing with the props and equally as often, have them basking in the sun a mere 2-3 meters from the boat.. I give mako's plenty of respect, there unpredictable, so they do make me a tad nervous, or rather very aware.

Kudo's to your efforts, great report.

[Jp2]

Hi Larkin, it may be a silly question but why did you deep drop at southern canyons and not at Browns?? In my experience the bottom is not achievable at the canyons??

cheers, John.

[Larkin]

11 hours ago, james Cutler said:

Brave man. Super photos. Good to see you got home.

Thanks James

10 hours ago, whiskey299 said:

What an epic session. Shame you didn't see what that monster was.

We recently fished Browns and didn't come across anything as spectacular as this. 

What pound line are you running?

Hi Brad, I was using 80lb main line. The triple rig was 400lb with 3 X 14/0 circles. Rod is 37kg

The slimies were quite large - 30cm butterflied and led strobe.

4 hours ago, BaitDropper said:

Awesome effort !!

Would agree with Zoran, brazen and brave, to say the least.

We would quite often, fishing the west coast of NZ, get Mako's come up and start playing with the props and equally as often, have them basking in the sun a mere 2-3 meters from the boat.. I give mako's plenty of respect, there unpredictable, so they do make me a tad nervous, or rather very aware.

Kudo's to your efforts, great report.

Thanks Baitdropper - that’s why I cut off the first one when it was still down deep. 
The second I have to admit scared me a little - more the not knowing what it was. I could have probably pumped it up to a point where I could get a cam down to see it, but even at 1.5 hours wouldn’t want a green fish next to me - which is why I think it would have needed another hour for it to be fully spent.

4 hours ago, Jp2 said:

Hi Larkin, it may be a silly question but why did you deep drop at southern canyons and not at Browns?? In my experience the bottom is not achievable at the canyons??

cheers, John.

Hi John,

I’ve been speaking to a few old timer locals who recon they’ve gotten some good bottom fish down here - and swords too. 

I research the bottom structure on maps - then I’ll do a few passes and sound out the area. Some maps end up being wrong with no structure, other spots come good. 

The first area was quite a barron bottom on a slope (where I hooked a seven gill), but I found a spot that was flat at the bottom of a drop. It was at the right depth and the sounder showed fish down there. It didn’t take long for a bite - within a minute or two.
I either hooked something big off the bottom or I had a good fish on and it was sharked on the way up. I know there’s fish down there but spent my time on this occasion fighting these 2 larger critters.

Edited August 13 by Larkin

[The Rev]

Great trip Larkin - pity you didn’t get to see the large fish, but that is fishing sometimes!

Thanks for sharing, it looked a great day out!

The Rev

[Larkin]

On 8/16/2024 at 1:31 PM, The Rev said:

Great trip Larkin - pity you didn’t get to see the large fish, but that is fishing sometimes!

Thanks for sharing, it looked a great day out!

The Rev

Thanks Rev!

The chances that it was a shark were pretty high - and I didn’t want a shark to surface 😳. But there was also the possibility of it being a sword too.

Since then I’ve spoken to one of the experienced guys at the tackle shop - told me next time to try driving forward slowly increasing speed to get what ever it is up on the plane & up to the surface. 

[kantong]

mate! heart stopping stuff, this is how sharknado 2024 starts!