Hello David. A mate of mine who lives in Sydney spent the whole winter season at Quobba this year(June to August) and I was lucky enough to spent only one week in July fishing with him. This year the mackeral were quite fussy on balloons but there were plenty of good size cobia about. The sharks were a serious problem especially around whistling rock when the swell was down and you were able to climb up the rear and fish it. We always managed to hook up using 85grm raiders, infact when I left he was able to land a few into the 55lb-60lb range using dogfights and gt86 with 50lb bionic/fins. Generally around Christmas time the macks tend to thin out a little but their should always be a few sharkies/macks/cobias/gts lurking about that will take a lure if its presented infront of themas ballooning is a non event due to the constant sw winds.Hope this helps, Ray.