A freezing night while fishing overnight during a full moon this week paid off for Grant and Kim Curtis on Friday morning, with Kim boating a pending world record snapper.

While her 9.235kg fish blasts the previous record by a couple of kg, it is a pending record until all the paperwork is done.

Affidavits confirming the catch from the Tauranga sport Fishing Club, and a length of the 3kg fishing line used, have to be sent to Florida for verification and testing before the record becomes official.

And by the time the pending record is confirmed the record fish will be gone.

'A big snapper like that is only really nice smoked,” says Kim. 'He could be 50 years old.

'The whole thing is most people go out snapper fishing with probably at least 10-15kg. It's hard to get snapper on light tackle. I'm talking cotton, breaking at three kg. It's only light gear, so you lose a lot of fish in the process.”

The snapper was hooked near Plate Island about 8am on Friday, and boated on the Curtis' launch Ocean Pacific.

Kim's thinking of getting the record pending snapper mounted.

The fish is a pending club, New Zealand and world record, says Tauranga Sport Fishing Club manager Roly Bagshaw.

'These guys have been fishing for a long time they are very good at what they do. She got the club record on three kilo a few weeks ago with a 7.4kg fish, and she's gone out eclipsed it with this,” says Roly.

'That's the thing that makes it exceptional, is it is on light line.

'She will get certificates galore out of this because the sport fishing council recognises three times line weight. There will be all sorts of accolades that come out of an achievement like that.

'It's great we have got people out there doing special things and casting a really good light on angling efforts for the club.”