Horrocks thought they would end up tagging and releasing the swordfish quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI jinxed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Horrocks spent seven exhausting hours clasped to her rod trying to land the record catch.<\/p>\n
\u201cImagine doing a wall squat holding one of those 20kg weight bags … on your lap for six or seven hours, with a moving floor and somebody trying to yank you forward all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike most swordfish, this one never jumped, leaving the couple unsure of its size \u2013 until after about five hours when they finally got it near the boat.<\/p>\n
\u201c … It was about four metres long and we went, \u2018Oh, sh**. This is going to be a tough one\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
As daylight faded, Horrocks worried about the fish on the trace being handled by Daniel. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey will do all sorts of crazy things around the boat when you get them on the trace,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, the swordfish was \u201creasonably docile\u201d as Daniel traced it and Horrocks gaffed it.<\/p>\n
The couple secured the swordfish alongside the boat, where it tried one last hurrah by throwing its bill back and giving a \u201chuge slash\u201d – a powerful, quick swipe – that slammed Horrocks\u2019 hand into the boat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly didn\u2019t think I\u2019d get through it,\u201d Horrocks said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSwordfish are just – they are the pinnacle of game fishing, and I feel personally that they\u2019re the pinnacle of fishing because they just are grunt machines, you know … when you think you\u2019ve got them beaten and you\u2019re thinking, \u2018Okay, this pain is finally going to be over\u2019, that\u2019s when they just take off again and they strip all of that hard-won line off your spool, and they just leave you totally demoralised, depressed, in despair.\u201d<\/p>\n
The swordfish eventually lost the battle, leaving the couple to figure out how to get their mighty catch on board.<\/p>\n
Karl Daniel and Helen Horrocks with the 279.3kg broadbill swordfish. <\/p>\n
An exhausted Horrocks manned the pulley system while Daniel lifted with \u201call his might\u201d to slowly inch the swordfish up and over the back of the boat.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took us probably close to another hour to get it actually in the boat,\u201d Horrocks said.<\/p>\n
The swordfish weighed the boat down, leaving them to crawl for three hours back to the Hokianga bar at around 11km\/h.<\/p>\n
Unable to safely cross the bar in the dark, they anchored overnight before weighing in at 6.30am the next day.<\/p>\n
The swordfish tipped the scales at 279.3kg, surpassing the standing women\u2019s 37kg line class record of 263.8kg, caught by L. Stone in 1997. The world record for that line class is 350.17kg.<\/p>\n
Horrocks, who fishes for the Ahipara Game Fish Club, was \u201cstoked\u201d to break the record with her first winning fish ever.<\/p>\n
Helen Horrocks spent seven hours reeling in the broadbill swordfish.<\/p>\n
When contacted, she was busy submitting her application to make the pending record official \u2013 and recovering.<\/p>\n
With the adrenaline gone, every body movement hurts. Even opening the fridge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve actually got really bad bruises and blisters,\u201d Horrocks said.<\/p>\n
Her love of fishing began in Scotland as a child. She discovered game fishing about 15 years ago after moving to New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just was instantly hooked on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Horrocks loved the endless learning opportunities the sport provided, and had teamed up with some \u201clegendary\u201d skippers over the years to soak in every bit of knowledge she could.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always something new to strive for … it\u2019s a life-long passion.\u201d<\/p>\n
That passion propelled her to buy her boat and start her business, She\u2019s Got Game, which provides coaching for women wanting to become or improve as skippers.<\/p>\n
Horrocks acknowledged the criticism sometimes aimed at game fishing. She and Daniel tag and release \u201c90% or more\u201d of their catch.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd when we do take a fish, it is a fish worth taking,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Horrocks explained the swordfish in this case was meaningful as it was caught during a tournament and a New Zealand record.<\/p>\n
She said it was processed immediately and nothing was wasted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Horrocks thought they would end up tagging and releasing the swordfish quickly. \u201cI jinxed it.\u201d Horrocks spent seven…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[150782,74,95,42780,5837,150784,1303,150781,11927,111,139,1067,69,12063,1974,118445,213,150783,5816,2834,80],"class_list":["post-263483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-279kg","tag-after","tag-and","tag-angler","tag-battle","tag-broadbill","tag-gruelling","tag-hooks","tag-landed","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-northland","tag-nz","tag-pending","tag-record","tag-sevenhour","tag-sports","tag-swordfish","tag-womans","tag-womens","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}