Woman breaks world record for spearfishing with a 360 lbs catch

36-year-old Nikki Watt, has achieved what no woman has ever done before. After facing several personal challenges and believing she would never spearfish again, Watt managed to catch the last fish to achieve a Super Slam, a world fishing record that no woman had ever achieved before.

Watt grew up spearfishing in Far North Queensland, Australia, and quickly learned about hunting billfish like marlin. It became her goal at that point. Over time, she discovered that hunting these fish, which weigh several kilos each, was about skill, not strength. In 2016, she tried spearfishing for the first time in Exmouth and was hooked after seeing her first marlin.

Although she wasn’t able to catch one, the experience served her well in catching a black marlin the following year, becoming the first woman to do so. In 2021, she added a sailfish and a blue marlin to her list of records, the perfect combination to achieve the “Grand Slam”, one of the highest honors in spearfishing.

Diagnosed with breast cancer

Two weeks before her wedding to her fiancé, Bryson Sheehy, who also spearfishes, Nikki began noticing a lump in her left breast. Tests confirmed what she had feared most at the end of the year: she had breast cancer.

“I didn’t process it,” she confesses, according to ABC. They had begun chemotherapy treatment, and after successful surgery, the lump was deemed non-invasive and low-risk. After this experience, Nikki underwent rehabilitation therapy, which helped her pick up a speargun again. The idea of fishing again seemed distant, and catching striped marlin seemed impossible, but her therapist assured her that surgery wouldn’t prevent her from moving on with her life.

The Super Slam

In April, Nikki, along with her husband and daughter, went fishing in New South Wales, where the fish congregate in places like Bermagui, Eden, and Jervis Bay. This was the first time the fisherman had been back in the sea since her surgery. It didn’t seem like an out-of-the-ordinary experience until Nikki found herself staring at the long-awaited striped marlin.

She didn’t hesitate to attack it, and when the animal’s body surfaced, she realized what she had just achieved. “When we finally pulled it up onto the platform on the shore, it weighed 162.5 kg/360lbs. I started crying. We couldn’t believe it,” the 36-year-old confessed. It was the largest striped marlin ever caught with a spear in Australia and the largest caught by a woman in the world.

Nikki had not only won her battle with breast cancer, but months later, she broke national and world records with her long-awaited striped marlin catch. Her latest catch earned her the honor of spearfishing at the Super Slam, making her the first recorded woman in the world to achieve this feat. “I’m sure we’ll talk about this with our grandchildren and they’ll get tired of hearing it,” explains Nikki, happy that her daughter was able to witness the catch.

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