Out wide there were several reports of multiple marlin sightings with both black and striped seeming to be the most prevalent.

Russell Emms headed out for an afternoon snapper bash and after marking heaps of bait on the sounder and watching them being concentrated into a ball, decide to jig a bait up and send it out to see what was making the bait so skittish.

He didn’t have to wait too long for the bait to be engulfed by a smallish black marlin that rubbed through the light leader after 10 minutes.

Still plenty of big sharks being caught tagged and released over the shelf.

Pete Burnside nailed his personal best mako, estimated at a 100 kilos, as the tag went in and was released boatside.

While this was happening a much bigger shape was noticed in the gloom and initially it was thought to be a very cautious monster tiger shark as it circled their boat.

The big visitor eventually moved in close enough and turned out to be a very curious pilot whale that stayed with the boat for quite some time before vanishing into the depths.

A few boats have been chasing the yellowfin out the front of Wollongong with reports of some excellent water out there at present.

Closer to home, the snapper and flathead fishing last week and weekend was nothing short of hot.

Good snapper were caught with a couple of big fish in the mix over 6 kilograms.

Most of the better size fish came in from over the 40-fathom depths and the majority were caught on soft plastics.

A couple of different shop customers who fished relatively close to each other in around 80 metres depth, complained later of being “freight trained” by some big snapper who won their freedom on the hard rubble bottom out there.

They were drifting down fresh strips of cuttlefish and encountered some just legal kings, mako and bronze whaler sharks that added to their haul of reddies.

reeldealfishing.com.au