Fresh from a season back on the reef off Cairns fishing for giant black marlin, Capt. Simon Carosi’s charge Assegai has ventured this time (home) to the southern island of Tasmania with mothership Solquest after a short stint in Melbourne for the Grand Pris.

Only their very first day targeting swords out of St. Helens…success! Releasing an estimated 270kg sword for Dennis in the chair in just under 2 hours. The fish did a couple of jumps and they put a tag in her before release. A nice fat one.

Hopefully a few more pics to come in the next few days.

Update:

And then they did it again!

This time Florida swordfisherman Nick Stanczyk, still on his Aussie tour and fresh from completing his Royal Billfish Slam on the Gold Coast is fishing with iFish’s Paul Worsteling and young Locki Nichols out of Eagle Hawk Neck, Tasmania.

Nick reports that after a 5 hour battle on standup tackle, with Nick on the gloves, Paul released an estimate 750lb sword which was satellite tagged also before release.

MONSTER SWORDFISH for Paul from @ifishtv!!! We hooked the estimated 750 lb broadbill at 11 am and after a 5 hour battle on standup gear Paul had her boatside and I wired the fish. Capt Locki Nichols did an awesome job putting us on the beast off Eaglehawk Neck, Tasmania! The most epic fish I've ever seen caught!! To make things even better @seantracey66 put a Satellite tag in the fish before we released it for the @imas_utas research program. @ifishchick @sassy.sarastanczyk #tasmania #swordfish #broadbill #broadbillswordfish #seamonster #satelliteTag #catchandrelease #CaptLockiNichols

A post shared by Nick Stanczyk (@captnickstanczyk) on Apr 5, 2017 at 3:12am PDT