Hey folks, I dont post on here much anymore since I've been living overseas but I wanted to share this recent capture as it has been a goal of mine for awhile now and is a pretty monumental achievment.

I've been learning everything I could about Swordfishing since in the states with a plan to return to Perth with the confidence in technique to target them succesfully. Unfortunately however I have had limited opportunities to go as everytime I hop on someone elses boat out of Venice Louisiana they just want to chase yellowfin tuna. I own a 20' PangaMarine skiff (think southwind UB570) which I use for flyfishing for bulll reds here and so have been waiting for a good weather window to go and test my technique and spots. Luckily the wait gave me plenty of time to learn everything I could before hitting the water.

In late september my brother flew over and we had 2 good days of weather to head offshore (~1200' water depth) and try the daytime swordfish game. The second spot we tried (flagged as likely from studting a bathy chart) and we got wacked, when we got the bait back to surface it was clear it was a sword given the leader abrasion and slash through the rigged squid. Over the next two days we had 3 hits on bait and even one wack on the lead sinker (looks like someone hit it with an axe) but just couldnt convert it into a hookup.

Over the next few weeks i spoke to a few swordfish diehards to better learn how to get the hookup after a fish finds your bait (not an easy task!). Mid October a 2 day weather window opened up but I couldnt find anyone willing to go midweek so I took off on my lonesome into the deep blue yonder on a little boat.

1st drop and I was getting wacked straight away. Played cat and mouse with him for 15-20 minutes but couldnt get the hookup and eventually he moved on. Squid and leader was a mess when I got it back to surface. 

I setup again and dropped another fresh rigged squid down. Pretty soon I was seeing action again and tried enticing him for what seemed like forever until suddenly I came tight. He came to surface fairly easily and to be honest I didnt think it was a sword. When he saw the boat however and warmed up he went ballistic. After 2 awesome jumps and about an hour he went a huge dive down to 200+metres, just as he was slowing down the hooks pulled. I was devastated to have finally hooked my first sword (est. 250#) and lost him and was certain that was my one opportunity gone. You can see the footage of that fight here -

vimeo.com/143524162

After getting my sh%t togethor I reset and dropped down again. After 20 minutes I was hooked up again. Easy fight up once again until he saw the boat and took off across the surface and launched. Realized then he was a pretty good sword and I had no idea just how hard the fight would be.. Long story short, 3.5 hours later I got him boatside and had a shot with the gaff, a little scary and not easy by myself.

I eventually got him subdued and it then occured to me I was never going to get him in the boat by myself. After tying him to the side and towing him for a few miles I eventually came across another boat that helped me get him in.

Unfortunately the place I was staying didnt have scales to handle it. A few of the charter captains that saw it estimated around 350lbs. Short length / girth calculation pegged it a 360lb. The Louisiana state record is 320 so would have smashed it if I had weighed the bugger....... not bad solo from a 20' boat :-)

Still editing the footage of this second fish but I will get it up asap.

Good weather coming Monday so hoping to give it another crack. I'm returning home to Perth in january so will be spending as much time as I can trying to work out daytime / nighttime in Perth Canyon... I've definitely been bitten by the swordfish bug! Cant wait to get back in the Indian Ocean!!!

Cheers all

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