It might just be time to get ready to do some fishing. Although most weekend warriors are loathe to plan a sortie afloat, the reports from the commercial fishermen are encouraging and it might occur to some observers that the spring wahoo run may have commenced. If it actually has then the fact that it is usually short-lived has to be taken into consideration.Captain James Robinson, fishing aboard his Wound Up had a great day down on Argus Bank, catching a total of 22 wahoo. Several other commercial boats working the same area also had good hauls in the double figures.Talk about putting in time; just think about Andrew Card's marathon battle for almost eight hours earlier this week with a fish that had no intention of coming ashore. Although a few days before he had latched on to something that kept him occupied for two hours before everything came slack, at least on this occasion, the culprit was seen and identified as a bluefin tuna.Now bluefin tuna are not all that common an occurrence around here but then again, maybe they are. If you look into one of the old guidebooks to tourism in Bermuda, the Blue Book seemed to be the main one in the early 1900s, some of them talk about sport fishing. This is really referring to the dark days when no one seemed to have any real idea of what was going on. Certainly this was before the days when travelling to exotic locales just for the fishing was pretty much unheard of. This predates Bermuda becoming renowned for its light tackle angling and way before the blue marlin figured as an attraction. In any event, many of the old guide books talk about bluefin tuna as one of the commoner offshore species. One of the questions that has to be raised is the matter of identification. There was confusion over the blackfin tuna and the yellowfin (Allison) tuna; which occurred where and when. There was also the fairly obvious problem of there not being any tackle available locally that would stop a full size tuna if it did take a bait. That probably explains why the bluefin weren't caught here.In the final analysis it was the readily chummable yellowfin and blackfin tunas that put Bermuda on the angling map. The lure of light tackle and the then unique way in which Bermudians lured fish to the boat with fry and anchovies went a long way to publicising the island.While all this development was going on, the international market suddenly made the bluefin a valuable commodity. Up until the Second World War, the only real interest generated in the fish was by the few sports anglers who wanted what was considered the ultimate challenge. In Nova Scotia where the fish were readily available, there was an annual competition for the Sharp Cup every autumn. That started in 1937 when big fish were the name of the game and their accessibility from the Canadian Maritimes made things relatively easy. Remember that air travel was pretty much unheard of and the thought of taking a ship to Bermuda just for three or four days here was dismissed as ridiculous.In any event, after the war, the world's fisheries changed. The Japanese market swelled and suddenly the bluefin tuna was no longer the nuisance fish that tormented commercial fishermen in the northeast. Those that had been caught had sold for pennies to the dog and cat food plants but now the Japanese market was offering top dollar.As an aside, although it doesn't get much mention, the bluefin had been caught and prized in the Mediterranean since biblical times.With the sudden increase in demand, exploitation of the bluefin escalated to the point where fisheries managers realised that the catches were not sustainable. This also stimulated a huge amount of research into the life of these large fish and how they travelled. Unfortunately despite tons of information, the real story is still full of holes and a lot remains unknown.What is known is that the bluefin spawn in the Mediterranean and in the Gulf of Mexico. We also know that they do make trans-Atlantic crossings. Bluefin have been caught off England and Norway as well as in the Bay of Biscay down through the strait of Gibraltar into all of the Mediterranean.In the spring, large fish show up in the Bahamas and follow the flow of the Gulf Stream up along the U.S. east coast, into Canadian Waters, into the gulf of the St. Lawrence and then, no one is sure.Relatively recent tagging with electronic tags has the fish passing through what might be termed Bermuda waters and moving into the central Atlantic. Whether they are on their way to Europe or not is a matter of debate and this doubt along with the high value assigned to the fish keeps organisations like the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) unable to come up with any serious resolutions to the problem of overfishing. This remains a matter of concern for conservation organisations and fisheries administrators in a number of jurisdictions.Questions include whether there is just a single population of bluefin Atlantic wide or if there are more than one that occasionally intermingle. There does also seem to be some variation in the size and quality of the fish with the Japanese market favouring the well-fed really large fish from the Maritime Provinces of Canada. While big fish have been identified as bluefin in the local area, do the smaller fish ( say, in the 100-pound or so category) come through here as well? They certainly occur along the United States East Coast and that is not all that far from where we are. The short answer is we just do not know.All that notwithstanding, in Bermuda, heavy tackle was a while coming until the 1980s when the number of monster blue marlin that were seen and that took full advantage of 30 and 50-lb outfits dictated that it was time to move into the 80-lb and then 130-lb class gear.Although the heavier gear was intended for blue marlin, it also made it possible to catch large yellowfin tuna. Over the years it has become pretty much standard and with a few operators fishing year round it was only a matter of time before catching a bluefin became a reality. In relatively recent times a few large fish have been caught while trolling and the Bermuda-based fishermen using pelagic longlines have also caught bluefin here.The suspicion has to be that the bluefin show up here in small schools as the reports of their sightings are usually consistent with that theory. Just how long they spend here is unknown. Large quantities of bait might keep them in a local area but if they are really on an ocean-crossing mission, they will probably keep on moving. While not a species to be the target of a local directed fishery, there is no doubt that, on occasion, a bluefin tuna here will take a bait and when that happens the angler will find himself on one end of some exceedingly Tight lines!!!