Broadbill Swordfish.
They are the ultimate quarry for many Kiwi anglers, and this time of year (on a nice weather window) is a great time to go and chase that first daytime sword. Good electronics are a must for this game, if you are fishing daytime when the swords are down deep you're going to be working anywhere from 400 - 750m of water.
A good place to start is finding bait (e.g. bluenose) around knolls/dropoffs/trenches and canyons in this depth of water. There is structure like this right up and down the coastline of NZ, but spots like the Garden Patch, Hokianga Bank, Bream Knolls, Barrier Bank, Mayor Knolls, and White Island Knolls are all likely spots, not to mention some crazy structure wide of Gisborne and Wairarapa that is largely unfished for swords by NZ rec fishos.
Once you have found some good bluenose or bait sign on your Furuno sounder (in low frequency), work out which way the current is moving (by doing a dummy drift holding the stern into the wind and seeing which way the boat moves on the plotter) and move up current of the structure to deploy your rig. When it comes to sword rigs everyone has their own special way of fishing daytime but most are using a break away weight (tied off the bottom of the hook), and several water activated strobes to draw attention to their chosen bait, skippy belly and squid being popular baits to stitch to a 14/0 open gape hook or large circle if you intend to release the fish.
A bent butt rod is a must so you can leave the rod in the rod holder for the 30 odd minutes you might drift before the big task of winding up from the abyss and resetting (or hopefully cranking a big sword in!). For those getting out and having a crack, tight lines and hopefully you end up with a full sized fish like this one Matt found on his TZTouch!
