A full report on the tournament is elsewhere but the 47 boats that entered, including 161 anglers, all came away with game fishing fever with some excellent fish being captured and tagged and released over the two days of fishing.

The number of marlin hooked, fought, captured and tagged, just highlights how good the game fish fishery can be off our Illawarra coastline.

We just needed the weather gods to be nice to us and the fish to be hungry and keen enough to play ball.

While the billfish were the target, many excellent yellowfin tuna turned up with a couple over the 70 kilo mark - something that hasn't been seen or heard of for many a season.

More inshore and over the shallower reefs, it seemed the snapper have started to show up in bigger size and better numbers than expected.

Some excellent fish hit the cleaning tables also over the weekend and earlier this week with a couple pushing 3 to 4 kilos.

The 40-metre depth line was the more productive zone now the current has settled and allowed jigs, baits and plastics to be worked successfully to entice the bites.

A couple of local fishos recounted a pair of big reds took them to the cleaners and busted them off on the bottom like they have never had before.

Plastics did the damage over the weekend for a lot of the fishos but with many reporting hooking quite a few cuttlies off the bottom, it looks like the fresh baits will come in to play over the next couple of months.

Flathead drifts fished well but the tackle stealing leatherjackets are back in plague proportions in some areas.

The further north, the worse they got, according to reports that came back into the shop but patience and a few moves saw most anglers return with a healthy feed of fish.

Not much to report from the beaches as the weather was just too good.

gazwade@bigpond.com