Headed out from Whyte island on a perfectly flat day, and headed to the cape. Stopped at Western rock and picked up a couple of livies, and headed out past hutchies. There were no other boats working my area, so after my sounder bottomed out at 250m, I threw out a spread, an headed for the 1000m line. After about 20 minutes the short corner got a tap, with a couple of clicks of the line alarm. I turned around and saw this shadow behind the topgun nightmare. Bang it went off and the fish stopped in the water and then felt the hooks and exploded through the spread picking up the shotgun. I wasnt sure if it was another fish, because the line tended to go at completely different angles. I cleared the spread as quickly as I could, as I could hear a hmmming sound which sounded like a bait pump - it was actually the line alarm, spinning faster than i'd ever heard it before. Went straight up to sunset, with 11-12kg of drag, and left the other reel at 5kg. It was still pulling line and I thought I was going to get toasted, as the 100m of nylon and the 600m of braid was dissapearing FAST..
It finally stopped, taking probably about 400-500m in its first run, check out the reel.
Had to unwrap the second line and pump and wind both rods, one in a harness and the other in the rod holder. After a couple of surface runs it went deep, straight down, at least 100m. Drove off it couple of times and after about one and quarter hours had it up on the side of the boat. The shotgun was in its tail, which I cut off.
The fish was thickly built and about 2m long. It swam well when released.
I was exhausted after my first solo blue.
Cheers
George
... when we got to with in 200m or so i could see the name which confirmed my first thoughts "MONGO XT" it was 
. Top job
