Reel Deal: Tournament catches include massive tiger shark

Many of the bigger trailer boats headed wide in the hunt for some action chasing blue marlin and hopefully big dollies that were reported being around. Crews found the blues up and down the coast ranging from just under 100 kilos to just shy of the 200kg mark.

Many local game boats headed south to compete in the Shoalhaven Game Fishing Club’s tournament and there were some sensational captures recorded.

The highlight was undoubtedly the massive tiger shark of  a sensational 583 kilograms (well over the old 1000 pounds) that was weighed in on Saturday morning after a long battle on 15kg tackle.

The crew hooked the big bitey at 3pm on Friday afternoon and fought it into the night to finally secure it alongside at 1am and then they made the arduous night trip back to the gantry around 7.30am.

There were also some nice blue marlin presented, with the biggest pulling the scales down at 180 kilos. There were also heaps of big dollies about with Tristan Williams and Mark Dandy and crew boating a very healthy (and tasty) bull of about 16kg in a somewhat consolation capture after dropping 2 solid blue marlin earlier in the day.

Closer to home, there were a lot of good reef species targeted with snapper, mulloway, mowies and pigfish aplenty.

Grant Bonner nailed a 3.8 kilo snapper fishing one of his local marks in very shallow water and there were lots of big blue mowies coming from the deeper reefs and amongst them were some very big pig fish and solid trevally.

The flathead drifts all fired as well from Stanwell Park down to Port Kembla and although no thumpers, they were well over legal with most averaging between the 45-50cm mark.

Frigate mackerel were still about in numbers in the local harbours and bays as well as juvenile kings and solid sized bonnies in the mix however the beaches were quiet from the rain.