Well, here it is: Good Friday has come and gone and Well, here it is: Good Friday has come and gone and you should have done a lot better. If you had been a strict traditionalist, you would have made a point of making sure that you had gone fishing and come up with a red snapper for the Good Friday feast. Chances are that you made do with codfish cakes and the odd hot cross bun.Not that you would have been too sure, even if you had tried to do the right thing. Red snapper conjures up all sorts of different fish, some of which don’t even happen here. Sticking to the textbooks, the red snapper is a true snapper akin to the grey snapper but achieving much larger sizes. Mostly it lives down in the Gulf of Mexico and has rarely, if ever, strayed this far north.Taking that into account, removes the suspicion from that species. Then there are the glass-eye snappers that were the be all and all of the heady longline days of the 1980’s. Such were the bumper hauls, that just about every commercial fisherman suddenly installed a snapper reel and took to longlining. For a while it was good; very good. But then things soured and slowed up. What it did tell was that there were some deeper water species that had pretty much enjoyed a free ride until someone discovered the potential that they offered. It seems that the problem was that their habitat was a bit restricted and that the total population was unable to sustain a concerted fishery for any real length of time.Oh, there were bonuses: working the deeper water provided qa pretty steady supply of John Paws or misty groupers. Definitely rockfish and definitely big. Readily marketable because they were rockfish but unfortunately, tough as old boots as people found out with alacrity.Anyway, we all learned a lot. There were several species that we all called snappers: they came in different colours and all had big eyes and mostly they went by the moniker “red snapper”. They weren’t really snappers but, hey, what’s in a name anyway? Now, whether or not this is the red snapper that was the preferred Good Friday dinner will probably never be verified but even a largish lane snapper would be; number one, a snapper and, number two, pink enough to qualify as red.It doesn’t really matter. The day has come and gone and you did not catch one and now it is time to look ahead. For those of you who might have forgotten, the official angling season kicks off next Sunday, 1st May. The Bermuda Fishing Clubs Annual Tournament will try to get things off to a flying start but there will always be the matter of the weather. Over the years the BFCAT has been fished early, late and in between with nothing really proving to be a sure-fire solution.Now, the fish remain another matter. This tournament is a light tackle tournament, something that most anglers have forgotten. The time of year suggests that trolling should be the order of the day but trying to hook a hefty wahoo or Allison on something like 12 or 20-lb test line is an entirely different proposition. Things like white marlin have also been known to show up but that is asking for way too much of most of today’s anglers.Actually, the white marlin is considered by some to be the ultimate light tackle challenge. They go get big enough (a hundred pounds or more); they run, they jump and, yes, they often shake the hook. A bit more challenging than the blues on heavy gear, if only because the terminal tackle is going to consist of a garfish behind a sea-witch or other lure. Nothing as simple as waiting for razor sharp 14/0 to grab hold in some beast’s maw; this might even require a drop-back and actually paying attention to the action. Add to that the fact that the white marlin is the prime window shopper; it will come up behind just about everything you may have on offer, play with them all, light up like a Christmas tree and then fade back never to be seen again. Far better a wahoo that merely nails the bait and either cuts it off right behind the hook (how do they do that?) or is fairly firmly attached. Ditto for a tuna. Nothing fancy, either hooked up or not. Other tuna species usually oblige in a similar fashion and the odd dolphin, when it shows up usually verges on the suicidal.So what is the option? Chumming. Whether that is even a starter will depend largely on sea conditions. For that read tides. A hundred miles to windward means do not even think about wasting your time. A nice steady leeward flow is most desirable but after the recent weather that kind of seems like pie in the sky. Anything even approaching clement conditions does open up other light tackle options. Bonitas qualify as game fish and are usually big enough to make the minimum weight. Rainbow runners provide action but are unlikely to make a showing at the weigh-in. As are mackerel or barracuda. It is a bit early really for blackfin even though they do please year round, despite being noted as a tropical species. Yellowfin are the main target. Most of the fish around during the last few weeks have been schoolies admirably suited to light tackle.They don’t usually have to be conned into taking a bait just about anything and everything is attractive to a hungry tuna. No finesse required: just set the hook and keep the drag light enough to make sure that there isn’t a resounding snap as the line parts.Don’t go nodding your head, even the most experienced angler is able to recount an occasion or two when the crack like a pistol shot meant the score had improved in favour of the fish. There are other little excuses for similar disasters: the bird’s nest of the untended reel often provides entertainment for the rest of the crew that does not have to suffer the ignominy.Light tackle it says it all. Challenges, a fair fight giving the fish a fair chance of making a fool of even the most seasoned angler and something that most of us have forgotten. But then again, wasn’t this sort of activity the whole reason for us us us going out in search of Tight lines!!!