Solo on a Jetski, 100kg Bluefin, One Shark Trying to Steal It

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

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🎵 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