KEY POINTS:
Almost 800 fishers in more than 200 boats headed out to sea yesterday in the hope of landing "the big one" in Tauranga's annual One Base gamefishing competition.
Organisers claim it is the largest gamefishing competition in the Southern Hemisphere.
Run by the Tauranga Game Fishing Club, the competition has $200,000 of prizes up for grabs.
Fishers are targeting billfish, tuna, kingfish, shark and snapper.
The competition began at 7am yesterday, when 794 anglers on 213 boats departed through Tauranga Harbour, and runs until Saturday.
By last night, the biggest fish caught was a striped marlin, but it did not qualify as it was under the minimum 90kg weight.
Two other marlin had been tagged and released, and one lucky fisher hauled in a 12.8kg snapper.
A focus on conservation means only big fish qualify for weigh-in.
Tuna must be a minimum of 10kg and snapper 5kg. Kingfish less than 1m long are not eligible, even though the minimum legal length for the species is 75cm.
Minimum weights for billfish and shark are 90kg and 150kg, respectively.
"What we're trying to do is discourage people from killing little sharks. We'd prefer they didn't kill any, to be honest," said club manager and tournament organiser Grant Holley.
He said fishers were encouraged to tag and release shark and marlin, in particular, receiving prizes for doing so.
Tagging allowed scientists to record a fish's growth, distances and areas travelled as well as other information if it was recaptured.
Mr Holley said the Tauranga Game Fishing Club had a 70 per cent tag-and-release rate for marlin, well above the 50 per cent aimed for by the New Zealand Big Game Fishing Council.
The practice has been encouraged since the mid-1980s but Mr Holley said it was not for everybody.
"The bottom line is that you can tag a fish but, if you're at the weigh station standing next to one that you've caught and killed, it's a lot better picture for some people than having tagged it."
The One Base tournament is in its 19th year but the number of participants is down on previous years.
In 2006, more than 1000 people entered the competition but Mr Holley said organisers had struggled a little to attract entries this year.
"Fuel prices are certainly a factor," he said.
Competition rules dictated that boats return to port on the first and third nights, with only one "stay away night", tonight.
Entrants come from around the country and Australia.
Last year, there was also a fisher from Dubai.
The competition is run at Sulphur Pt marina, where prize-giving and entertainment evenings are also held for the participants.
"It's pretty tiring for some who burn the candle at both ends," Mr Holley said.
