With snow starting to fall on the North American mainland can winter’s chilly grip be too far away? Maybe not in terms of months, but we should still manage a few more weeks of reasonably fishable weather and even the weekenders should be able to get a little something for the freezer.This might take a little creativity because this autumn has not progressed in the manner that we would normally have expected it to; but, that’s the way it is. No stocking up on prime wahoo and a nice stash of yellowfin sides. There have been a few nice picks but it has mostly been “on again, off again”. So, be prepared to try most anything when going fishing.The offshore situation remains pretty much as it has been with few real amateurs venturing offshore even though the weather has been acceptable for most wannabe seafarers.An added distraction has been the amount of seaweed that has drifted into the local area. Large mats of it can become a troller’s nightmare and any heavy weather will only disperse the weed making it harder to troll clear of it. Although many places welcome seaweed mats because they harbour fish, especially dolphin, that simply does not seem to be the case here. It is not as if there are never any predatory fish associated with the weed but any correlation is far from clear. Finding flotsam in the form of rope, wreckage or even whole trees washed overboard are usually better bets but even when an absolutely perfect specimen turns up, it is possible that there will be no fish cruising around it.So maybe trolling is not the way to fill the fish box. An alternative even to chumming is to go back to good, old-fashioned bottom fishing. Use multiple hooks, three or four is a good number and make sure that they are of the circle variety. Initially viewed with suspicion, these work so well that they can take a lot of “yawking” out of the fishing. Quite simply, their design has most fish hook themselves. Use of a tough bait like octopus (locally referred to as “scuttle”) or squid which will have a fish repeatedly nibble at the bait almost guarantees success.For many years, although maybe not as much now as it was fifteen or twenty years’ ago the red hind was pretty much the staple of the bottom fishery. A day’s drifting on the Banks usually produced large tubs of coneys and hinds with a fine sampling of rockfish, gwelly, bonitas or ambers providing the variety and usually a lot of weight.Things have not changed all that much; it is just that the fish are not as numerous or as large as they used to be. That should not come as all that much of a surprise. Actually, if you think about how many years the same pieces of bottom have been worked by hook and line and fish pots and just how much effort went in, it is a miracle that there is anything left to catch.A day’s bottom bouncing should produce a few hinds of moderate size along with coneys. The latter, a small member of the grouper family share the characteristics of the larger, preferred groupers and make top class fillets. Another member of the grouper clan is the barber and while these are more frequently found on the reefs immediately surrounding the Island they also make for a fine fillet and should go into the fish box.Remarkably, it seems that they only come in one size with the average and most common size weighing just about one pound even. There aren’t too many people who can honestly say that have seen a large barber so beware of such tales!While red hinds were once so numerous that they were dumped in favour of proper rockfish and groupers and only the largest ones were landed, in more recent years anything that makes the minimum legal size is kept by just about everyone.An additional drawback to throwing the hinds overboard in the “good old days” is that most probably never made it back to their habitat in the deeper reef areas. When hauled to the surface, the gases in their bellies expand and make it impossible for them to do much more than float helplessly on the surface, awaiting their fate.While jumbo-sized hinds are a real rarity these days, there should be enough legal ones to provide the family with fresh fish.On a more encouraging note is the apparent number of small red hinds that seem to be about. They are being found and; unfortunately, caught, on both the Banks and the Edge. This suggests that one or more recent years’ spawn remained near the Island where it eventually settled out onto suitable habitat and the larvae survived to become little fishes. Little fish grow into bigger fish and now some of these are being caught by hook and line fishermen.Although there may be some old wives’ tales about, very few red hinds that were the sort of size that you might keep in the average home aquarium have ever been seen. Diving surveys for this species were equally unsuccessful although the number of adults that were being caught on a daily basis strongly supported the belief that the population was alive and; at least, at some level of well.Returning undersize hinds is also problematic. It takes more than simply tossing them back into the water. They are not much better at getting down deep than their larger forefathers were. Winding them or piercing the swim bladder to let the expanded gases out is a possible solution although there is probably a proper way of doing this and about a dozen improper ones. Still, an amateur’s best attempt will give the fish a better chance than floating away on the surface or meeting with an illegal and untimely fillet knife. Today’s little fish are tomorrow’s trophies and we should all think that way.With some rather inclement easterly winds forecast for the weekend, it looks like the boats will stay on their moorings for yet another stint, giving the barnacles a chance to get a real hold on things. They don’t grow quite as quickly during the cooler winter months but all sorts of boring organisms (nice play on words, there!) do take full advantage of hulls that stay put. So, maybe it is not the wahoo or tuna that will get you off the moorings but the knowledge that a moving boat is a cleaner boat might get you doing a bit of trolling through the inshore waters. There are mackerel around that will take a daisy chain and dragging a small silver spoon-type lure will get the attention of any jacks that have not yet headed offshore. While not the stuff that angling dreams are made of, when suitably light tackle is used, either species can provide some entertaining Tight lines!!