Sharing a lesson learnt

Paddling last Friday morning off Malabar heads in Sydney’s east. About 1.5 km out and paddling directly into the sun, I let a 40 ft cruiser pass in front of me. Didn’t realise that they were trolling with surface lures and before I knew it, I was over one of their lines. It picked up my rudder, swung me around and there I was, catch of the day! Biggest Swordfish they’ll ever catch
Pretty rough and not really wanting to jump over to remove it, I swung my legs over the side and waited until they reversed up. Luckily it came free without anyone needing to get too wet!
Lesson learnt: give plenty of room with cruisers about, particularly astern.

I've had similar incidents with more consequence.

I paddle a lot of lake due to my geographic location, so my run ins with dock and boat fisherman are more frequent.

Most times we can untangle or I can break their lines.

However once, the lure must have been near the surface and I caught the line around my neck. I felt the line traveling and before I could stop the hook lodged in my back shoulder.

Well, now I try to give any boat or shore fishermen as much distance as possible.

Like your story, my guy had an "Epic" catch.