Dave Nielsen is an extremely keen angler. He works for the local shire during the week, but on weekends you can bet that Dave will be out on the water before the sun rises.
It was on one such Sunday that Mark, just arriving at one of his favourite jigging spots, watched Dave battle what both men thought was a really big shark. To their mutual amazement, this gigantic dogtooth finally surfaced. Dave has commendable fishing ethics and he was keen to try and release the beast. Mark jumped over from his boat and the two spent an hour trying every method they knew to get the "big guy" to swim away. Now anyone who has caught big doggies in deep water will tell you, it is virtually impossible to revive such a large specimen and unfortunately this proved to be the case. Finally the fish was hoisted aboard for some photos after which Dave promptly returned to the boat ramp and handed it to local Malay families.
For the records, Dave stands in at 6'4", just to give you an idea of the size, and Mark estimated the fish to be around 85kg. Details of the capture are also extraordinary. It was taken trolling a Halco 2m diving Laser Pro 190 in a Bonito pattern. It obviously took the lure near the surface, swam around on the top for a while before taking a massive dive towards the bottom. It was at this time that Dave thought the small fish he had hooked had been sharked. We do not see big doggies like this taken trolling, especially not at this time of day.
Now, we don't usually post reports of fish here that aren't caught on "Shorefire", but I'm sure that you will agree that a fish like this deserves acknowledgement and we thank Dave for letting us be involved in his spectacular effort.