WITH the warming weather, the offshore fishing has started to fire with plenty of big fish, big bust ups and some sensational action from the men in grey coats.

Big spanish mackerel were a feature of recent times with the best going 20 kilos.  Halco Scorpion Crazy Deeps are scoring most of the trolled fish but we managed to land a couple on jigged lead casting lures as well.  As big macko's don't release well, we've been leaving them alone once we get one for the boat and heading off after other species.

Longtail tuna have been working the edges of the mackerel country and we had a couple of memorable mornings catching tuna until my clients’ arms ached.

The best longtails went close to 10kg while a couple of mack tunas came along in the 7kg range.

Sharks proved to be a problem at times, edging the lost lure tally in each boat well into double figures on one memorable big day. One huge shark showed amazing agility to snatch a 12kg mack tuna from the surface in spite of my client trying to pull the tuna out of the shark’s way.

Some big fish were seen on the sounder under the tuna schools and jigs dropped to the bottom while the 'lucky' anglers were playing their tuna. This often brought results.

A couple of nice cobia (to 15kg) were landed and released along with more tuna, GTs to 12kg, a huge Pacific barracuda estimated at 23kg, a big 'rocket' catfish, scad and a spotted mackerel.

In offshore terms, the place was going off!

The harbour channel proved to be a bit of a sad story with almost every fish being grabbed by the resident gropers and grey suits, leading to even greater lure losses.

Inside the river, the lead head jigs lasted long enough to land plenty of tea leafs and brassies along with some nice grunter and fingermark although the sharks still made their presence felt.

Trolling the shallow reefs also provided plenty of action with coral trout, cod, golden trevally and other assorted reefies getting in the act.

The rivers are still disappointing with only the occasional barra, salmon and jack coming along on lures and live baits. A couple of nice barra and fingermark on the tides early in the week were the only bright spot in a fairly quiet set of river tides up to the close of the Gulf barra season.

A few thunder rumbles around the place on Saturday (4 Ocotber) hopefully are the forerunner of the good wet season needed to get the rivers up and firing again. We wait in hop eof some serious rain.

1) Some quality mackerel have been about in October and this should to continue through November.