It's so big she has no room to hang it in her home.
Nicky Sinden is the new world record holder of the biggest broadbill swordfish ever caught by a woman.
Sinden, the host of a popular New Zealand fishing show, wouldn't reveal the precise location of her catch, but did say that she caught the beast "out really deep, 600 meters-plus... very far out to sea."
Sinden took her new 23-foot fishing boat, Game On, out of Whangaroa in northern New Zealand on March 22.
She says that "an enormous swordfish ate a large arrow squid on the second drop as if it were an elephant eating a peanut."
She fought the fish for an hour before gaffing it, not a particularly long time for such a monster. "Normally it takes a lot longer. I've fought for three and a half hours before for a 199 kilo," she said.
"For this particular one we didn't realize how big it was until we saw it jump. As its shoulders erupted out of the water I went, 'Wow, it's a monster'. We were just blown away."
The certified weight of the swordfish was 794.2 pounds. It's length was nearly 14 feet (13.78 feet). The bill of the fish measured six feet in length.
The old record, which stood for 65 years, was 758 pounds. Sinden's fish trounced that record by 36.2 pounds.
The fish was so large that the crew could not bring it into the boat. So they got the head and bill in, and Sinden jumped in the water and tied a rope around the tail to secure it. The weight of the fish made for a slow journey back to port at 8 knots.
"...we had no idea it could be a pending world record until the weigh station crane at Whangaroa lifted the swordfish from the back of the boat," Sinden said. "The scale read over 600 pounds before the crane had even fully picked the fish up off the boat."
"While I was sharing the story with my dad on the phone, the giant fish broke the weigh master's rope and dropped sword-first into the water, where it got stuck in the mud. Luckily, we were able to haul it back up, still in perfect condition. And needless to say, we still have ear-to-ear smiles from this catch."
Sinden broke two records with the catch: the women's all-tackle world record and the women's 130-pound line class record.
Sinden tried hanging the fish in her living room, but the mount was just too large. So she ended up giving it to her sponsor, and it now hangs in their store. She did, however keep the original sword from the fish and intends to have it mounted.
She makes sure to affirm that they had intended to release the big broadbill, but it was mortally wounded.
"If the hook was nestled in the corner of the mouth and had lots of energy, then of course we would let it go, that was our intention for the day, but the fish has swallowed the hook."
Watch Sinden hook, fight and land her record broadbill swordfish in the video below:
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