Beni Hafoka's just resumed game fishing after a break of three years and caught a black marlin on his first trip back.

The 375kg fish is a Tauranga Game Fishing Club record.

Beni Hafoka had a welcome return to game fishing when he pulled in a record breaking marlin.

Black marlin are reputed to be caught is shallow water near reefs or structures and generally on live bait, but Beni's fish was hooked at sunset in 80m of water between Mayor Island and the Penguin shoals in weather that was rapidly becoming marginal.

Beni was fishing from a 32 foot Pelin launch named Jan's Decision, skippered by Cory Davies, with Mike Easton as the trace man.

In deteriorating conditions they were thinking of returning to the Mount, but inside the mayor the weather wasn't so bad.

'Cory decided to change course and run across the face of Mayor back up to the hundred metre line, with the plan of running toward Motiti and then back in to the mount with the following sea,” says Beni.
'As far as funny things go Cory's inside the cockpit keeping watch, Mike and I are having a quiet beer and the banter starts up with Cory saying ‘feels rather fishy around here', and Mike; ‘Rather marlin fishy. You got ya harness on Beni? Best you put it on now, haha.'

'Without a word of lie, five minutes later I yell out ‘fish in the gear.'

The fish took at least 600m of line without slowing, and they knew they had a big fish.

In 25-30 knots of wind and a swell of two metres Jan's Decision was taking seas over the back soaking Mike and Beni.

'After an hour and a half we noticed all that was happening was a bit of a stalemate,” says Beni.

'Cory started to think we had a big dead blue on our hands with previous stories in my head I started to get quite dejected about my first marlin being dead on the sea floor without even seeing her jump.

'We tried planing her up, tried increasing line angle hoping she would get into the water column, but everything we did was leading to the fish dropping back to the sea floor.”

Cory made the call to drop the boat downwind of the fish and use the swell to help lift the fish and create more line angle.

'Either we would gain some line or lose the fish as we had no other option with the wind and swell building,” says Beni.

'It was getting late and we had exhausted all options as far as our knowledge went.
'We were lucky and the fish came up pretty easily with the swell which we think was our saviour.”
They had the fish round the back of the boat in 20 minutes, but it was too big to tie across the duck board, and too wide to get through the transom door.

The fish was held onboard by a line from its tail to the anchor winch, which held the fish onboard as they headed back to the Mount trailing the head over the stern.

The 375kg black marlin was caught on 37kg line east of Tuhua between Mayor Island and the Penguin shoal in 80m of water over sand. It was boated in two hours, 20 minutes.

The head is being mounted by Katikati taxidermist Kevin Flutey at Art of Fish.

They had to cut off about half the fish for the taxidermist, but there were still four big chilly bins left over, says Beni.

'We got it smoked by friends of ours in Putaruru. They own a boat called Scrubcutter. They have done a beautiful job of it.”

The head will be displayed at the game fishing club.

Beni's black marlin is among the first few marlin to be caught in New Zealand waters this season.

It's a season that has gotten off to a slow start mainly because of the weather, says Tauranga Game Fishing Club manager Grant Holley.

'It's slowly getting up there, I think they are recording 20.5C, 20.6C. The weather has been the major factor putting people off – along with the debris from the Rena I guess.

'I doubt it's putting the fish off its just a matter of being able to get out there and get amongst it, with the swells and wind that we have had of late.

'But it's been a pretty slow start. I was talking to Dr Clive Roberts from Te Papa museum who is up in Tutukaka at the moment, and they as of last Friday only weighed one fish up there.

'They are normally a bit ahead of us and get the warmer water before us, but obviously not.”