There were captures of billfish from Sydney to way down south of Jervis Bay, with multiple hook-ups on both striped and blacks.

The billies were found anywhere from 80 fathoms out to beyond the contintential shelf drop off.

Batemans Bay Game Fishing Club held their annual Tolllgate Islands Classic last weekend and, though the seas and wind weren't favourable, there were plenty of fish caught in the sporting conditions with 25 marlin tagged in one day alone - as well as plenty of dolphin fish.

Locally there were again quite few marlin raised by anglers with a few boats going 5-3-3 for the weekend on mainly stripes, with a few fish raised on our local reefs over Bandit, Trap and Wollongong.

To make a bold statement this will get better as, historically, Australia Day over the past few years has seen multiple numbers from even the smallest trailer boats as the warmer, northerly current and accompanying summer nor'easters push in.

It has been said before, when the blue bottles appear on the beaches the marlin and big dollies are out there.

Snapper played a little hard to get, with some anglers successful whilst others had the dreaded bagel.

There was no rhyme or reason to this anomaly - that anyone could put their finger on - but most customers said the afternoon bite was much better than earlier.

Most of the reds reported were caught around deeper reefs of 60-plus metres depth and the 'go to' baits were generally soft plastics and jigs.

Along with the reds, there a have been plenty of big, blue mowies and pigfish as well as quite a few pearl perch which are always a welcome by-catch down this way.

The kings were again about with quite a few big hoods hooked both off the rocks and by the boaters, with fish weighing to 10kg.

Flathead fishos are still rejoicing with plenty of big fish coming in, and absolutely no problems getting a bag limit of fish.

Email Gary Wade at:

gazwade@bigpond.com