WELL, it is about time! There are signs that things are coming back to life offshore. Although effort is slowly stepping up, catches have been more than encouraging and, with luck, the charter and sport fishing are about to get into full swing.

Even though the weather has been less than ideal, commercial boats and a few charter boats have managed to get offshore and the wahoo are finally starting to cooperate. There have been numerous catches of between three and five 'hoo's and while this is not fantastic, it is a vast improvement over the way things were just about a week ago! It seems that the wahoo have organised themselves into small schools and that they are willing to bite, often in doubles or multiple strikes. They also seem to be of a reasonable size, considerably larger than the summertime lizards. Twenty to 30-pounders have been near enough the average, far better than a 13 or 15-pound lizard. Fish of 50 or more pounds have also been caught and that should be sufficient reason for anyone to think about venturing offshore. Just so it quickly because, if this spring run is anything like the norm, the run won't last long and the fish will disperse all over the Edge and Banks, making good hauls much more difficult to accomplish.

Interspersed with the wahoo have been a few dolphin and the odd tuna, of both the blackfin and yellowfin varieties. It is this array that makes early season trolling a whole lot of fun: even though wahoo are the expected species, it could be just about anything that takes your line and it is possible to put together some nice mixed bags.

Even a bit of trolling effort along the Edge should make for some wahoo steak which will be most welcome after several months where fresh local fish was pretty much lacking. What more could you want? Being greedy, most anglers would say a full slate of warm water gamesters ready to please on all classes of tackle. Although a bit of a tall order, this may not be as far-fetched as it appeared just a couple of weeks ago. Here's why:

The best news of all comes from numerous reports of bait on the Banks. Not just flying fish and flying squid, both of which are most welcome, but also of small yellowfin tuna. Now, if these fish are out there can the tackle-bustin' blues be far behind? Similarly, rainbow runner, oceanic bonito and the rest of the summertime cast are arriving everyday and it won't be long now before the offshore scene will be transformed into high summer.

In the meantime, the presence of school-sized tuna augurs well for the light tackle angler who wishes to pursue his sport via the chum slick. Although most of the fish seen have been schoolies, there may well be some considerably larger tunas lurking just beneath the surface, invisible to the eye but ready and willing to feed in a chumline. That could provide a real light tackle surprise! There was also a report of a good haul of wahoo with an interesting impostor slipped in amongst the toothy critters. This was, by all accounts, a sailfish. Sailfish are really strangers to Bermuda. There are never more than a few, as in two or three, caught in any one year and they tend to show up during April/May, skip the summer and may happen again later, toward the end of September.

People wonder why this billfish isn't a local standard. It has long been a symbol of tropical holiday destinations and many people commonly associate sailfish with palm trees, sun and sand.

The simple answer is that the sailfish is really a coastal fish and although capable of traversing entire oceans, prefers to spend its life on some continental shelf. Longline reports bear this out: the more open ocean fishing is done, the fewer sails. Conversely, the more marlin, especially blue marlin. For this reason, it is suspected that they get caught up in schools of wahoo and travel with them. That would help explain why their occasional appearances in local waters coincide with the known wahoo runs.

In most places in the world where they occur on a regular basis, they show up in such numbers that it is unbelievable. In the Pacific, places like Guatemala and Costa Rica often have bites that allow a single boat to get 40 or more fish in a single day. And that doesn't count missed shots. In the Atlantic there are places off the coast of Africa where similar numbers occur. The unfortunate thing is that there is plenty of heavy duty commercial fishing in many of those areas with the numbers of sails being killed really quite phenomenal. Who knows how long the sport fishery will continue in such places. At least many of the Pacific nations have outlawed the killing of sails to try and conserve what is a valuable and potentially renewable marine resource.

After reports of rather substandard fishing along Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, things improved sharply as the Rolex/IGFA 2006 Tournament got underway. There had been suggestions that current conditions were not ideal for the game fish that are so abundant in that area of the Pacific Ocean. Well, something must have come right because after a reasonable first day, the competing angers caught and released an incredible 139 marlin for a tournament record. But as is always the case, for some teams it was a wonderful day, for others, merely a case of wrong time, wrong place.

After the first day during which one of the Bermuda teams (Spanswick, DeSilva, King and Boys) scored zero points, they came to life on day two, releasing seven striped marlin and rocketing into fourth place. Still lagging back in the pack is the other Bermuda team but with two fishing days remaining anything could happen.

Next weekend sees the first of the local tournaments as the Bermuda Fishing Clubs Annual Tournament (BFCAT) and the Sandys Boat Club Tournament get underway. The former is limited to the local angling clubs but the latter is open to the public with entry forms, etc. available from tackle shops.

Beyond that, and you will probably be getting the boat ready for that mid-week event this year, the 24th. Amazing how quickly it seems to come around each year! In any event, the fishing will be limited as cruising and picnicking are the order of the day. While fun for some, it sure isn't much suited to Tight lines!!!