Gale force winds that rolled through early last Saturday morning heralded a potentially no fishing weekend but by early afternoon they had subsided and many local fishos took to the still lumpy water in search of a feed.

Conditions were tough to say the least with water visibility at an astounding 30 to 40 metres.

Most of the action took place out on the wider reefs such as Wollongong and Trap, where there were a lot of pan-sized reds caught as well as blue mowies and pigfish.

The bigger reds were hard to come by and the barracouta were again making the fishing harder.

In close there was very little caught owing to very little wash and ultra-clear conditions.

However the accurately forecasted bump in the ocean has been very welcome and has all fishos chomping at the bit for when it abates.

The wider flathead drifts continued to hold some good sized sand flathead with customer Jason Veale getting his personal best for the year at just over the 2kg mark.

There were also some reports of good sized tiger flathead showing up on the northern drifts.

The beaches have continued to fish well for flathead and bream and whiting with Greg “canvas” McLean again pushing his personal best whiting up a notch with a very thick and healthy fish which pulled the scales down to an impressive 610gm cleaned.

Freshly caught beach worms was the trick for him with a couple of very respectable winter whiting bags over the last week.

After a good run of school jewfish off the beaches, things again have been very quiet and one can only attribute it to the very calm conditions.

The weather predicted for this weekend is looking at being a boat and fishing gear maintenance weekend with blustery west to south-west winds predicted and a rising sea which may push some schools of blackfish into the southern sheltered corners.