Luke from Leisure Coast Tackle at Corrimal says marlin fever is now reaching epidemic status with a swag of marlin captured and/or tagged and released over the past 10 days.
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Most of the billfish fish have been caught well and truly within the range of most trailer boats with the 50 to 70 fathom line holding a vast majority of them.
Michael Wearing fished the Wollongong FAD last week to boat himself a top dolphin fish of 15 kilograms while Chris Stolk managed a healthy dolly of 11 kilos on 8 kilo line class.
As for the marlin, literally too many guys to list them all but there were three hot billfish bites off Bandit, Wollongong and Trap reefs and the billies were taken on all traditional trolling or live baiting methods.
Even the switch bait boys saw action.
Those chasing snapper and kingfish had a good weekend as the reddies seemed to fire up again last week with quite a few fish coming from the deeper reefs.
The inshore reef systems were infested with barracoota and made for tough fishing with a high gear attrition rate.
The kings have all fired up again this week with numerous fish to the 90cm mark up and down the northern Illawarra coastline and around the islands of Port Kembla.
Freshly caught squid have been the gun baits as well as smaller sized slimey mackerel - if you can get one under a kilo.
But again the seals are wreaking havoc around the islands following boats waiting for the next live bait to be pitched over the side.
Flathead have been in good numbers and size on the deeper sand drifts as well as Stanwell Park Beach and further beyond towards Bolga.
There have been plenty of gummy sharks and flounder on the northern drifts.
Frigate mackerel have been making an appearance, and these little speedsters are so much fun to catch as they hunt out small whitebait in our various harbours such as Bellambi, Wollongong and Port.
The preferred lure has and always will be the smallest metal slugs you can find and or soft plastics.
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