Huge Broadie - 272kg, caught close to Motiti in shallow water!!!

Craig Flowerday recalls the moments that he and mate Alan managed to get themselves a whooping 272kg boradie onto his 4.8m trailerboat! - Quite a story:

"Myself and my mate Alan found the broadbill lying on it's back in about 5m of water off the knoll at Motiti on Wed morning. It was still alive, moving it's tail from side to side and trying to swim but looking very tired. It was obvious it was sick or had been injured because it didn't worry about us being right beside it. We threw a rope around it's tail and dragged it out to the deeper water and then spent the next 30 mins struggling to get it on board. We got it back to the game club to be weighed and put in the chiller. Out of interest the gut cavity and intestines were empty apart from the backbone of a small fish, so it hadn't eaten for quite some time. One of the locals at the game club said a commercial fisho had released one out of his net 2 weeks earlier and it could possibly be the same one as they don't recover that well from stress. The tail had fresh cuts up it too which may have been made from a struggle in a net?

Thanks to Grant and the team at the Tauranga Game Club for weighing the fish for us and letting us use the chiller and facilities free of charge. "

Craig