My name is Stewart Hunter, I live in Russell in the Bay of Islands and am an ex charter boat skipper. I got your emails from Lane at the Swordfish Club.
About 2 months ago I had a friend here from Scotland who had read your article in Marlin Magazine. We went out to an area about 60 miles off shore and tried your method. After only having the lures in the water for 40 minutes we caught the smallest Broadbill I have ever seen.
We were towing the lures on the surface and also had a bright light about 10 ft below the surface on a downrigger - both apparently the wrong thing to do but we did get this small fish.
Bruce Smith was towing his lure on a downrigger at about 70 feet when he got his world record claim fish. Had no other lights on - not even internal lights aboard the boat. He also had a piece of squid on the lure.
Two nights ago there were 5 boats fishing an area we call "The Garden Patch". 4 of them were fishing deep with dead baits and had no action apart from sharks. The other one - "Te Ariki Nui" skippered by Jason Wootten - was using your methods and had 2 Broadbill hook-ups. Unfortunately they lost both of them but it sure seems to prove a point and there will be a lot more people doing it here in the future.
Regards
Stewart Hunter
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