🎣 Get the Net – Tight Lines, Loose Lips! 🎙️

A 5.8 metre trailer boat. A UFC heavyweight strapped into the harness. And a Pacific bluefin tuna that pulled the scales to 243kg bled, gutted and gilled.

Matt Jurlina is a plumber, a Muriwai beach launcher and one of the Chums boys — a crew of mates who grew up rural and never stopped chasing fish together. He's also the bloke who'll tell you about the trips that went wrong: the $15,000 weekend, the four-hour swordfish lost at the leader, and ten big broadbill missions this season for zero fish.

Then one dead-looking day off Cape Brett, with Brando "The Balkan Bear" Peričić on the rod, one live blue koheru changed everything. Matt walks us through the bite, three leader shots, the call to take the fish, and how it ended up feeding more than 100 people.

We also get into his first marlin (no gaff, no gloves, no electronics, 128kg), why live baiting works from snapper to 250kg tuna, and the one word he wants you to take away: confidence.

Tight Lines, Loose Lips.

⏱️ Chapters / Segments

(00:00) Meet Matt & The Chums

(10:00) First Boat to Great Barrier

(20:00) First Marlin, No Gear

(30:00) Staying in the Game

(40:00) The 250kg Bluefin

(50:00) Getting It Home & Confidence

🎧 Listen on Spotify & Apple Podcasts | Watch on YouTube — Search Get The Net

✅ Matt Jurlina @jurlina_livingwild (IG)

✅ chums.nz (IG)

✅ balknbear (IG)

✅  @chums.online  (YT)

🔗 Links & Socials

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@getthenet_nz

- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/🎣-get-the-net----tight-lines-loose-lips🎣/id1824558692

✅ Follow Us

- Instagram: @getthenet_nz

- TikTok: @getthenet_nz

- Facebook: @getthenet_nz

🎵 Music Used

✅ Proctor, Topher Mohr & Alex Elena

✅ Satellites, Swello

✅ Momentum, Zplit

✅ Source (YouTube Audio Library)

# 🎥 Production Notes

✅ Shot on: Sony A7iii + Sennheiser Mics

✅ Edited in: Adobe Premiere Pro

✅ Shot, Edited & Produced by Nick Hoyle

Jonathan Watts runs Northside Adventures, a Hauraki Gulf charter operation he started in late 2018 — barely a season and a half of trading before the March 2020 lockdown shut the water down. He grew up 130 kilometres from the sea in the English Midlands, float fishing canals on a pushbike, then spent four years surfcasting the Welsh coast before landing in New Zealand in 2001 and having to relearn everything.

That freshwater stealth-and-presentation background is exactly why he now fishes the Gulf the way he does, and it's why the biggest snapper in one year's Lure Masters came off his boat.

With Lure Masters a week away, the soft bait snapper content is where this one earns its keep. Jonathan breaks down how he fishes shallow water for big fish: drifting into the spot rather than driving over it, setting up long drifts along weed lines, cycling motor oil, bruised banana and bright orange across the crew until a colour proves itself, 15lb braid to a 25–30lb fluoro trace, and the line that'll start arguments — in shallow water the big fish are always on the end of the longest cast, never under the boat.

He also breaks down finding winter workups out towards Great Barrier: 7x50 binoculars, whale spouts on the horizon, terns before the workups form, and what it means when a gannet is flying dead straight at 27 knots.

Then the kingfish method — Jonathan's full live-bait routine from a charter skipper's seat. Catching bait before the sun's up on the southern side of Kawau, depth-coloured braid so every angler knows exactly where their bait is, sinker above the swivel so a busted-off fish isn't towing lead, reading the bait ball on the sounder (grainy and spread means no kings; darkening red and walling off means something's on it), shearwaters as a dead giveaway over the reefs, why spot lock changed everything, the "at least three seconds" rule on circle hooks that almost nobody manages, and the proper spike-bleed-slurry routine if you're taking a king home. As a bonus, the story of the biggest snapper of one year's Lure Masters — landed off his boat in 15–20 metres at Little Barrier on a fusilier-coloured soft bait after a morning hiding from the weather behind Kawau.

Season-opener stuff for anyone fishing the Gulf this spring. Full episode is on the Get The Net podcast — watch on YouTube, or listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Guest : Jonathan Watts — Northside Adventures Fishing Charters, Hauraki Gulf (since 2018). Kingfish and snapper charters departing Sandspit (Omaha launch available May–October); full day, half day, or individual seats on shared trips.

• Website: https://northsideadventures.co.nz/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/northsideadventures/
• Instagram: @northside_adventures — https://www.instagram.com/northside_adventures/
• Phone: 027 389 7000
• Email: [email protected]

Timestamps

• (00:00) — Meet Jonathan.
• (10:00) — 130km from the sea to the Gulf.
• (20:00) — Reading the reef.
• (30:00) — Fish care and the Lure Masters fish.
• (40:00) — Comp tactics and finding workups.
• (50:00) — Rapid fire.

🎣 Links & Socials

• YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/@getthenet_nz]
• Apple Podcasts: [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/🎣-get-the-net-–-tight-lines-loose-lips🎙️/id1824558692]

✅ Follow Us

• Instagram: @getthenet_nz
• TikTok: @getthenet_nz
• Facebook @getthenet_nz

🎵 Music Used

✅ Proctor, Topher Mohr & Alex Elena

✅ Satellites, Swello

✅ Momentum, Zplit

✅ Source (YouTube Audio Library)

🎥 Production Notes

✅ Shot on: Sony A7iii + Sennheiser Mics

✅ Edited in: Adobe Premiere Pro

✅ Shot, Edited & Produced by Nick Hoyle

This episode contains footage shot by Matt Ringot (@FrenchAdrift) and remains his own content — best viewed in video mode.

Matt Ringot — known online as French Adrift — grew up fishing lakes and rivers in France with his grandparents before landing in New Zealand ten years ago and falling hard for saltwater. He's since gone from an old Cresta Craft in Wellington Harbour, to a kayak that nearly got the better of him twice, to building his fishing life almost entirely around a jetski — chasing snapper, kingfish and now game fish solo off the West Coast.

In this episode Matt breaks down his jetski jigging setup — line, leader, hook choice and the drift-speed-and-vertical-angle fundamentals that separate a good session from a skunked one — and explains why he hasn't taken bait fishing since switching to jigs. He also gets into the real safety lessons from years of solo missions: tethering to the ski, carrying three forms of communication, and never, ever going it alone on a game fishing run.

The centrepiece of the chat is Matt's first bluefin tuna — a 90-minute solo fight in building swell off the Bay of Plenty that turned into a genuine tug-of-war with a 2.5m shark trying to tear the fish off his gaff mid-fight. It's one of the wilder landings featured on the show, and Matt is refreshingly honest about the mistakes he made along the way and what he'd do differently next time.

Solo jetski missions, shark encounters, and a 100kg-plus tuna landed the hard way — full episode is on the Get The Net podcast. Watch on YouTube, or listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

(00:00) Intro

(10:00) Why the jetski

(20:00) Jigging fundamentals

(30:00) First topwater kingfish

(40:00) Heading into the tuna trip

(50:00) The tuna fight escalates

(1:00:00) Landing it, and the shark fight

(1:10:00) Wrap-up

🌟 Links & Socials

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@getthenet_nz

- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/🎣-get-the-net-–-tight-lines-loose-lips🎙️/id1824558692

✅ Follow Us

- Instagram: @getthenet_nz

- TikTok: @getthenet_nz

- Facebook: @getthenet_nz

🎵 Music Used

✅ Proctor, Topher Mohr & Alex Elena

✅ Satellites, Swello

✅ Momentum, Zplit

✅ Source (YouTube Audio Library)

🎥 Production Notes

✅ Shot on: Sony A7iii + Sennheiser Mics

✅ Edited in: Adobe Premiere Pro

✅ Shot, Edited & Produced by Nick Hoyle

Scott Malcon has been in the NZ fishing industry his whole working life — Rebel Sport, Fish City, then Brittain Wynyard, where he went from sales rep to running the Daiwa brand in New Zealand for 16 years. His philosophy from day one: get cool people doing cool things.

In this Quick Cast Scott covers growing up rowing out to Browns Bay reef with his dad, why shallow-water soft baiting on the Stabi at the Barrier is his happy place, a blue marlin near 300kg caught for an 80-plus year-old grandfather, and the day a 50-plus kilo kingfish came over the rail at White Island and went straight back. We also pick his brain on deep dropping — finding uncharted rocks, live jack mackerel for bait, drift set-up, electric reel choice — and how 60–70% of Daiwa's NZ rod range is built specifically for Kiwi anglers.

Quick Casts are short, sharp sit-downs recorded live at the NZ Boat Fish Dive Expo in partnership with Daiwa NZ. Full-length Get The Net episodes are on the channel, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

👤 GuestScott Malcon — Brand Manager, Daiwa New Zealand (Brittain Wynyard)

- Daiwa NZ: https://www.daiwa.co.nz/

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daiwa_nz/🌟 Links & Socials

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@getthenet_nz

- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1824558692✅ Follow Us

- Instagram: @getthenet_nz

- TikTok: @getthenet_nz

- Facebook: @getthenet_nz

(0:00) Cool people doing cool things(5:00) Fish of a lifetime — soft bait tip, 300kg blue marlin, 50kg kingfish released(10:00) Deep dropping 101 — uncharted rocks, live bait, setting the drift(15:00) Electric reels, circle hooks and the Daiwa story(20:00) Built for New Zealand — Kiwi-spec rods and Scott's dream fish

#GetTheNet #NZFishing #DaiwaNZ🎵 Music: Proctor (Topher Mohr & Alex Elena) | Satellites (Swello) | Momentum (Zplit) | Source — YouTube Audio Library

🎥 Shot on Sony A7iii + Sennheiser Mics | Edited in Adobe Premiere Pro | Shot, Edited & Produced by Nick HoyleRecorded live at the NZ Boat Fish Dive Expo in partnership with Daiwa NZ.

Helen Horrocks is a Scottish-born sailor turned game fisherman turned boating coach, now based in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand. In this episode she traces her unlikely path into fishing — from scavenging tangled line off riverbanks as a kid, to kayak guiding in Paihia, to buying her own yacht so she could learn to skipper on her own terms. That same yacht became the platform for her game fishing obsession, sparked by a triple marlin strike that hooked her for good.

Helen now holds a ratified New Zealand women's record for broadbill swordfish — a 279.3kg fish landed during the Cater Marine Opua Small Boats Tournament off the Hokianga coast, after a brutal seven-hour stand-up fight that left her legs permanently scarred from the gimbal. She talks candidly about the fight itself, the physical and mental toll of chasing records on light tackle, and a separate, far scarier night targeting a ten-kilo bluefin record that nearly ended in disaster on the run home in the dark. Along the way she shares the gear, mentors and trial-and-error lessons that shaped her as an angler and skipper.

She also talks about "She's Got Game," the coaching business she runs alongside her marketing day job, built to give women hands-on, practical experience skippering and fishing rather than just theory. It's a conversation about obsession, complacency, teamwork, and why she thinks the best way for women to break into boating is simple: stop waiting for an invite and buy the boat yourself.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Meet Helen Horrocks — sailor, fisherman, boating coach, and founder of She's Got Game

9:22 The Watershed Moment — a triple marlin strike, learning from Bruce Martin, and eyeing the bluefin record

20:23 The Bluefin Scare — hooked, lost, and a dangerous ride home in the dark

29:12 The 7-Hour Swordfish Fight — hooked up, the physical toll, and wrestling the fish aboard

39:19 Gear & Advice — rods, reels, swordfish behaviour, and tips for women getting into fishing

48:55 Bluefin, TV & a Business Award — her first bluefin on camera and recognition for She's Got Game

58:38 Wrap Up — thanks and final words

FOLLOW HELEN

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/88fishes/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@88fishes

SHE'S GOT GAME

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shesgotgamenz/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shesgotgame

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@shesgotgamenz

Website: https://shesgotgame.co.nz/

LINKS & SOCIALS

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@getthenet_nz

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1824558692

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/54DYLnjQkQLjdDz8USJgab

Music: Proctor (Topher Mohr & Alex Elena) | Satellites (Swello) | Momentum (Zplit) | Source — YouTube Audio Library

Shot on Sony A7iii + Sennheiser Mics | Edited in Adobe Premiere Pro | Shot, Edited & Produced by Nick Hoyle

Andre Kassal — @Drefish, Ocean Angler pro staff — moved to New Zealand from Germany in 2011 chasing trout, and stumbled into saltwater fishing almost by accident after watching a fishing show on TV. Fifteen years later he's personally landed three snapper over 85cm — five between him and his wife Kie — from a 4.5-metre boat Kie talked him into buying, all fished in water so shallow he can see the bottom.

This episode covers his shift from German freshwater lure fishing (Zander, pike, perch) to New Zealand's shallow-water snapper game, why he never fishes deeper than 20 metres even when the fish are there, and the real ecological reason big snapper matter more than most people realise — snapper and crayfish are both key predators of kina, and losing enough of either lets kina strip the kelp bare.

The centrepiece is the story of his personal-best 30-pound (13.9kg) snapper, caught on the exact day marking ten years since he arrived in New Zealand — and what happened when he spotted the same fish again, two years later, in a stranger's photo on Facebook. Kie gets her due too — her own 85cm personal best, landed solo in risky conditions, held the boat record for years.

✅ Andre Kassal @Drefish

✅ Ocean Angler

⏱️ Chapters

0:00 – Meet Andre Kassal

10:00 – From Germany to New Zealand's Shallows

20:00 – The 30-Pound Anniversary Snapper

30:00 – Overfishing, Kina Barrens, and Why Big Snapper Matter

40:00 – Gear, Ocean Angler, and the Softbait System

50:00 – Reading Conditions: Tides, Moon, and Overcast Days

1:00:00 – The Hidden Kingfish of Auckland Harbour

1:10:00 – Kie's Record-Breaking 85cm Snapper

1:20:00 – Mentors, Advice for Young Anglers

🌟 Links & Socials

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@getthenet_nz

Instagram: @getthenet_nz | TikTok: @getthenet_nz | Facebook: @getthenet_nz

🎵 Music: Proctor (Topher Mohr & Alex Elena), Satellites (Swello), Momentum (Zplit)

🎥 Shot on Sony A7iii + Sennheiser Mics, edited in Adobe Premiere Pro, shot/edited/produced by Nick Hoyle

Part 2 picks up where the action is — sounder marks, Rays Bream bars, throwaway waypoints, and the discipline to ditch a predetermined plan the moment something better appears on screen. The conversation turns to the pre-fishing mission that set up the biggest result of their careers: bait stacked at Whale Rock, a fish spotted off Cuvier, and a weather window that most boats decided to sit out.

The conditions were brutal — three-and-a-half metre seas, wet weather gear purchased the morning of, and Cor (Jason's dad) calling it off the moment he saw what they were heading into. Mark and Jason went anyway. What happened next is the kind of story that gets told at prize-givings for years. A 384 kilo black marlin. Three hours on the rod. A trailer boat, two blokes, and a fish that took everything they had.

The chaos around the weigh-in is worth the price of admission alone — Scott from Rayglass tying off the bill, Cor somewhere between 8 and 16 beers deep, and Mark parking the boat and walking off it because he was completely done. Second place overall, the heaviest billfish in the competition, and $497,000 split three ways.

🎧 Watch on YouTube — Search Get The Net

📱 @getthenet_nz on Instagram, TikTok & Facebook

🎵 Music: Proctor (Topher Mohr & Alex Elena) | Satellites (Swello) | Momentum (Zplit) | Source — YouTube Audio Library

🎥 Shot on Sony A7iii + Sennheiser Mics | Edited in Adobe Premiere Pro | Shot, Edited & Produced by Nick Hoyle

Mark Phillips grew up in Whitianga casting hand lines with Mum and Dad before discovering soft baiting and slowly working his way into competition fishing. Jason van Esch, a builder and tiler from Auckland, found his way back to fishing through camping trips, trailer boat comps, and a burning desire to be the guy walking away with the reels. A bromance forged on a building site and sealed somewhere out past Cuvier.

Part 1 is a front-to-back masterclass in what it takes to compete at the Kubota level — from the early trailer boat days chasing snapper prizes, to the first Kubota entry in 2021 where a tagged stripy and a stranger calling them "little bitches" at prize-giving lit a fire that's been burning ever since.

The stories you won't forget: Mark's first blue marlin on a broken rod at 500 metres. Jason's first blue, lost after an hour with no gimbal. Kylie's five-and-a-half-hour sword battle. Thirteen winds from a monster they never got. Part 1 ends with three swords tagged, $70,000 in the pocket, and a chip on their shoulder the size of a black marlin.

🎧 Watch on YouTube — Search Get The Net

📱 @getthenet_nz on Instagram, TikTok & Facebook

🎵 Music: Proctor (Topher Mohr & Alex Elena) | Satellites (Swello) | Momentum (Zplit) | Source — YouTube Audio Library

🎥 Shot on Sony A7iii + Sennheiser Mics | Edited in Adobe Premiere Pro | Shot, Edited & Produced by Nick Hoyle

Matt Shuker built a business tracking the ocean so Marine Intel members never fish blind. Marine Intel started with a marlin trip to Westport and a mates group chat. Now he’s directing triple marlin strikes from a garden centre car parkMarine Intel delivers custom daily ocean reports to game fishermen across the country, decoding satellite data, sea surface temperatures, subsurface thermoclines, and chlorophyll blooms into plain English: here's where the fish should be, here's why.

Eighteen months in, it's his full-time life — and it all started because a trip to Westport didn't go the way it was supposed to.

In this episode Nick and Matt go deep on the science of finding fish. What does a game fisherman actually need to look at on a chart? Why do bluefin behave like long-haul truckers — pulling off at the same productive stops year after year? How does the green-to-blue edge rule work, and when does the biggest fish of the year completely ignore it?

Matt breaks down both winter and summer oceanography, the South Island bluefin migration window, and why checking the wind map isn't enough — you need to know what the water was doing before the window opened.

There's a full breakdown of the tools and software he uses, plus the story of directing a client onto a triple Marlin strike from a garden centre, just by pulling up charts on his phone.

There's also a safety conversation that every NZ game fisherman needs to hear. Matt was 18 miles away when a father and son's trailer boat was caught in a factory trawler's rope off Greymouth — in the middle of the night, in cold South Island water, with no coastguard and no helicopter within range. Their Mayday call was two words.

The boat sank. They survived — rescued by Valhalla, who were cooking a roast when the call came in. This episode is bluefin season listening.

Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts | Watch on YouTube — Search Get The Net

Matt Shucker @marinaintel_nz
Marine Intel marinaintel.co.nz

GET THE NET
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@getthenet_nz
Instagram: @getthenet_nz
TikTok: @getthenet_nz
Facebook: @getthenet_nz

MUSIC
Proctor — Topher Mohr and Alex Elena
Satellites — Swello
Momentum — Zplit
Source: YouTube Audio Library

Shot, Edited and Produced by Nick Hoyle