Many boats headed wide in the hunt for a marlin and also a look at the FADs.

Many reported heaps of bait out there but no fish with a dramatic drop in water temp in close that didn’t break until out over the 70 fathom line.

With another excellent weekend forecast, the next couple of days should see plenty of boats head wide on the chase for the first run of billfish for the season.

Closer to home the snapper were definitely on the bite with everyone reporting some great fishing in both the shallows and the deeper reefs.

In close, the bite was only a quick one before the sun came up but there were some 5 kilogram reds pulled from a couple of undisclosed locations from two very secretive local fishos who reported their catches came out of less than 10 metres depth.

Those on the deeper reefs such as Wollongong and Bandit fished the bait schools of slimy mackerel for a lot of school sized and smaller reddies to around the 3 kilo range.

As per the norm these days, the better fish came to those throwing soft plastics in the 120mm to 150mm sizes, and by using a number of rods at the same time.

In amongst the reds there were very welcome by-catch of pigfish and blue mowies as well as a couple of half decent kingies in the mix as well.

Trolling live baits and squid again undid some good sized kingfish around Minnamurra and Shellharbour with a couple of fish going close to the 10 kilo mark.

However up on the northern side around Port Islands and Bellambi it was virtually impossible to get through the smaller rats that abound in almost plague numbers at present.

Flathead drifts have been firing on all cylinders with some absolute cracking fish being caught.

There have been quite a few big sand flathead being caught over the 700 mm length as well.

Website: www.reeldealfishing.com.au  

Email: gazwade@bigpond.com