I, and I expect everyone who has been out chasing Marlin have just experienced the best Striped Marlin fishing, at least that I can remember, in Sydney waters. After hearing about the great fishing up around Coffs and Port Macquarie there was expectation or more precisely hope they would continue South. There were also reports of a huge number of Blacks moving down from the Gold Coast. This run of Stripies started with the New Year, or maybe just before. The SST at the time was centigrade 21 to 22 degrees and the current only just running to the South. The Striped Marlin started showing up off Sydney up around the ‘Bait Station’ at about the time of New Year however they had been caught at Norah Canyons previously. It was fabulous during those first few days, to be at the ‘Bait Station’ raising Marlin with no other boats around. As is typical with Striped Marlin on lures the hook up rate was not good but more than made up for by the sight of several fish trying to eat the lures. Oddly I wasn’t marking much bait then and what there was must have been very small because we couldn’t jig it, thus we were restricted to lures. As the bite continued the Marlin moved slowly South and even increased in numbers and with great weather conditions more and more fishermen were coming out. Personally, I found it hard to understand what was keeping the fish here there just didn’t seem to be enough bait to hold them, however that did change later on. At the time there were heaps of Dolphins accompanied by more Albatrosses than I have ever seen in summer months so there must have been bait around. I guess in retrospect it was sitting too high in the water column to be picked up on my sounder. We then had a change in weather, a Southerly called a halt to fishing on the Friday and Saturday leaving me wondering about what affect it would have on the fishery. On the weather charts Saturday looked fishable and I had a charter so off we went. All I can say is that it wasn’t pretty out there at all. But David and his wife hung in and had the experience of their lives and I had the best day’s fishing I can remember off Sydney. I’m sure the rough sea had something to do with it because suddenly there was bait up high and Marlin everywhere. We ended up raising twelve Marlin, hooking seven and releasing four. Not great figures but not bad for lures in those conditions. The next day, Monday was a glamour, hard to believe the ocean could drop off so quickly. However, conditions had changed. The fish had moved a lot further South and the temperature was up to 24.5 C and at one point reached 26 C, generally considered too warm for Stripies. But they were there, not in the same numbers as Sunday but now they were accompanied by Black Marlin and there were several Blue Marlin taken to add to the mix. At present the bite is down around and South of Wollongong. There is still a bit of action up here. The Blacks are going off out of Port Stephens and enough have been taken down here to make it interesting. And for sure there are Blues to be found out wide ready to run you ragged. Tight lines, Ivan