Do not doubt that it is summer. The humidity is way up there, it is getting hot; the overnight low’s often more than 70 degrees and the talk is of hurricanes. Happily, the offshore temperature has not yet reached that number that seems to be the magic attractant for the so-called tropical systems that can wreak havoc. What impact that will have on the fishing will remain to be seen.Finally things have livened up bringing an end to a most pitiful beginning of the season. Although the variety may leave something to be desired, the wahoo have really started to please. Catches into double figures have been relatively commonplace and even amateurs putting in a limited number of hours have managed to come up with a half dozen or more.One of the more successful boats, Capt. James Robinson’s Wound Up caught over seventy wahoo in just three trips. It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that is better than 20 fish per trip. It also doesn’t take into account how many dropped fish or missed strikes there might have been. Take those into account and it must have been really hopping out there!Best of all, the action was not especially coming from a crop of young-of-the-year fish in the ‘teens, weight wise. There was actually a fair amount of variety with many fish in the 25 to 35 pound range and some heftier fish moving into the 50 and 60-pound brackets. A very nice selection, indeed!A very few boats reported taking the odd yellowfin tuna on the troll but these were nowhere near as numerous as one might have expected for this time of the year. In the past, the light tackle chum artists were usually concentrating their effort on this species; ahead of the blackfin that prefer the warmer water in July.Still, you can expect an increase in the action form other species. Many of these will be small game like dolphin (never really too numerous) and rainbow runner but others will be the focus of attention in just a few weeks. Rest assured that there are marlin on the offshore grounds and they won’t be bashful if you drag an intriguing-looking lure over their heads.Funnily enough, just as quickly as things can turn on, they can turn off again. After about a week when the fish seemed hell-bent on suicide and the fishermen went forth with great expectations, the average picking dropped to something like one fish for the day’s effort. Not exactly what they had in mind.Given the nature of fishing, they were back at it the next day and; as they say, “every day is fishing day but only some days are catching days”. Similarly, if you don’t go you won’t know.Just because the fish go off one day doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t return with a vengeance a day or so later. What really bears watching is the fact that a day or two can mean that the fish have moved a substantial distance and the new hot spot may be somewhere that has been totally off the radar.The bottom line is that the results of the past couple of weeks have established that there are fish out there. If they have remained in the local area for that long, they obviously have some reason to and logic suggests that the activity will continue until some major change occurs. It pays to remember that nature is usually concerned with stability and survival at all levels is predicated on such.Still, sometimes sudden changes in the fishing can be the result of extremely subtle changes to their environment. Most of the time the reasons remain cryptic but they could result from a change in the tides. These can even be changes at depth which remain unknown to those of us who can only observe the surface conditions. Water movements, fluctuations in temperatures, perhaps even changes in the bait species can influence the fish’s activities and all we ever really see is whether or not they are biting. They will bite again, probably when you least expect it.For obvious reasons, sources of fishing reports usually request that the whereabouts of the action remains relatively secret although the truth of the matter is that savvy anglers can usually figure out what is going on. This is often simply by making sure that they follow the commercial fleet out and go where they go. This can occasionally backfire such as one occasion when a weekender followed a charter boat that had spent a week catching some quality yellowfins in the chum to a point on the Edge where they dropped anchor. What the weekender didn’t know was that the charter was specifically to catch yellowtail snapper and the spot deemed appropriate for such was just about as far from the preferred tuna ground as you could get.Suffice it to say that the action has been pretty well spread out with a few spots proving to be better than average. If the focus is on tuna, then the Banks are the best bet and there will be some major predators roaming around that region, so be prepared.Things are thus auguring well for next week’s Bacardi Tournament. The first of the season’s large tournaments, this event draws entries from the very occasional anglers all the way through to the professionals who go to try their luck at catching the biggest wahoo or tuna.In one sense this is a great leveller because it takes the really large fish like marlin out of the equation. The fish that are the target species can be caught on pretty much any ordinary class of tackle; the sort of gear that an average angler might have.This can be contrasted with the unlimited heavy gear that is used in the pursuit of the real big-game beasts.A little more contentious are the boat categories. While most agree that the professionals should be in a class of their own; the boat size doesn’t matter as much among the amateurs. Those who know what they are doing will produce fish on a consistent basis and most have boats that suit their tactics, regardless of size.Larger boats suggest that they will fish in rougher conditions, but for the most part, organisers try to have the tournament when conditions are safe enough for even the smallest craft, so the handicap isn’t as large as it appears.So, fish out there, ever-improving sea conditions and a new focus on things piscatorial. There’s a good chance that the weekend will see the casual anglers making a sortie to establish the situation in advance of actually finding some Tight lines!!!