This was going to be one sword trip none of us would ever forget. Saturday afternoon, Pushbutton2 called and had a spot on a friend of ours Conch to head out swording. It was the two of us, Sean and a friend of his Eric. We left Hillsboro around 6:00pm and got out a little early.
While waiting for it to get dark, Sean put out a single feather and started to troll south at about 5mph. In less than two minutes, the rod bend over and my immediate reaction was, ” you’ve got to be kidding?” A nice 20lb dolphin starts jumping behind the boat. No followers but still pretty damn lucky. A good omen for the night maybe?
We got set up with the usual spread and started our drift. Nothing happened at all, very slow. At 11:10pm our night changed. The 300′ double hooked squid started singing and we were tight. Eric had never caught a sword so we had our winder, er angler. He was in the harness in a second and away we went. The fish never jumped or came to the surface, just dogged it out down low for awhile after dumping more than 2/3’s of the 80W. The drag was on the lighter side to start but after a few hours it started to get pushed up. This was a continuing theme of the night. I started thinking shark because of the way it fought but you never know so the fight continued. Not really sure when but at least 3-4 hours into it with Eric still on the fish, we started to gain, slowly, a crank at a time. Finally, up comes the double line, then the wind on shows. I can see the LP down low and the fish is still swimming strong, heading east as she had been doing the entire fight. I’m in the bow with the harpoon waiting for the shot. He gets 3-4 wraps of the wind on on the reel and all of a sudden up she shoots, launching herself 3/4 of the way out of the water. 30′ from the boat she explodes. All I remember was the huge bill pointing to the sky and the biggest set of shoulders I have ever seen. She grey hounded away from the boat in a shot I’ll remember the rest of my life. The only thing I could say was ” Holy Sh#@!!!” All of us were speechless.

It was confirmed, we had a sword and it was a monster. Several hundred yards later and we were back to the fight. After 5 and 1/2 hours, Eric was whipped and the fish was showing absolutely no signs of weakening at all. It’s now 4:45am and Todd puts on the harness and takes over. I’m thinking, ok, fresh angler, 5 plus hours of heavy pressure, we’ll get her soon. If the hook set wasn’t any good it would have pulled by now, we have two stainless 7691’s in her, an 80W with a mile of line and lot’s of experience in the boat, just wait till we get the shot, and she is coming home with us. Todd gets the wind on on the reel three more times in the next couple of hours but we never got her closer than 30′ and never saw her. Each time it was 45minutes of solid work to get her close then she takes off like nothing. Lifting the rod with each pump was like trying to lift a manhole cover with an ultralight, the sheer weight was enormous.

By this time we had drifted well north of where we hooked up, around the 26.10/79.50. Daylight is starting to show and I started thinking about what my wife was thinking when I never came home that night, I’m sure it wasn’t “Oh, they’re just fishing, probably got a big one on, he’ll call whenever” Probably more like death and disfigurement. I figured we were probably off Palm Beach by now and could try and get someone on the radio who could possible make a cell call or a relay. After 30 minutes of not getting a response, the Radio crackles “This is the U.S. Coast Guard for vessel Pushbutton2″ I was able to relay our position to them and they called her so she new the worst hadn’t happened. The CG operator kept asking when the voyage would end and we would be expected back. I kept trying to tell him we had no idea but he wanted a response. ” When we land her” was all I could think of. Whew, now back to the fish.
Todd on the fish as daylight starts to break.

Todd Richards

Just before daybreak, Todd hands off to Sean which I’m thinking means only one thing, gulp, I’m next. Those of you who know me know how much I love to be on the rod. Sean has alot of experience as well so I’m thinking “this fish is in trouble”, all this time she has to be getting tired, we obviously have a good hook set and the gear is up to the task, we’ll get her up again. What a joke. He is fighting her and can barely lift her as well. After an hour of not gaining anything, he puts the rod in the holder and we apply maximum pressure. Not sure how much drag was on but it was well past 45lbs. We tried running in circles, we tried backing down, we tried everything. This fish would not come to the surface for anything.
Sean putting some serious heat on

A little after dawn, I started thinking that she may have died and we were not going to be able to get her up, so we started planing her up, which was working. Slowly but surely we would gain some line planing her. When we got to about the 300′ mark, she burned off another 100yds or so. I’m pretty sure dead fish don’t take drag like that. This kept on for another few hours.
A helpless feeling

Finally, at 10:30am, after almost 11 1/2 hours, we decided to do the only thing we hadn’t tried, lock up the drag and see if she comes up. I know she wasn’t dead because she was still making runs as late as 10:20am. We locked up the 80W and slowly came to a stop. She kept taking line a few inches at a time until it finally broke off at the reel. I expected to feel really upset and disappointed but didn’t really feel that at all. The better player won. We gave it everything we had and she was better than us. It was just not her time. I have seen some amazing things on the water and this will be one of the most incredible things I’ve seen. I’ve been swordfishing for almost 7 years and never had I dealt with anything like this. My biggest has been 250lbs and that was a 4 hour fight on a 50. There was never, in 11 1/2 hours one time when I felt like we were in control. That fish did whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted to and there wasn’t a damn thing any of us could do about it.
So, how big was she?? We were very fortunate to get a good look at her up close. When she jumped next to the boat, we could all tell she was huge, but how big? No way to say for sure. I know she made my 250lb’er look like a rat. We ended up about 10 miles North of Palm Beach and about 20 miles offshore.

Fortunately, we had enough fuel to get home, almost a two hour run. What did I learn from this?
1. a few bags of chips don’t make dinner, breakfast and lunch
2. give a little more information to my wife about where I am and who I’m with
3. 50TLD’s with 80lb power pro are fine for 90% of the fish out there but when the one comes along, forget it. You can’t have a big enough rod/reel.
4. Some fish just can’t be caught
5. you never know if that next bite is going to be a rat or the one, that’s what makes swordfishing so great for me.
6. anybody want to go swording tonight?

Written by: Dpdash