If the outriggers and towers at the marinas seem to be thinning out, this is not your imagination but the fact that most of the foreign boats have headed off to new pastures. The lure of big tournaments along the East Coast and the increased likelihood of hurricanes are valid rationale for moving on now that the local billfish tournament series has come to an end.

The Sea Horse Anglers Club Billfish Tournament saw 30 boats challenge each other and the offshore conditions in the final leg of the Bermuda Triple Crown. This had some of the best billfishing boats vying for honours over the three days.

For reasons that will probably remain unexplained for ever, the action was substantially slower than it had been in previous years, despite the tournament days coinciding closely with the preferred phases of the moon, and the seas being reasonably calm and relatively free of the floating seaweed that can make trolling so difficult.

The final billfish tally was 82 fish — 67 blue marlin and 15 white marlin. This contrasted with a total of 93 the previous year.

The first day was a rather overcast day and things got off to a slow start, but the fish gradually started to make their presence known. While this came as no surprise to anyone involved in the pursuit of such fish, what seems uncanny is the way that it always seems to be the same boats that get the bites. This very quickly became apparent as the same boat names started figuring on the tournament fish log.

Each hook-up called in seemed to come from Wave Paver, Builder’s Choice, Blue Bill, Juben and Mama Seata, almost to the point of monotony. While this was not actually the case, as virtually all the boats would call in hook-ups during the tournament and catch something over the three days, there seems to be some sort of magic that some boats just have whatever it takes to attract the fish and entice them into biting. The catching is a bit less predictable with lots of things that can go wrong — pulled hooks, parted lines and unforeseen events that can baffle even the most experienced anglers. As the first day came to an end, the tally was 19 blue marlin and five white marlin.

Expectations were high as the second day dawned much as the first, with the weather not being the bright sunshine and cumulus cloud so characteristic of a Bermuda summer day. The bite was rather better, with 23 blue marlin and five white marlin being logged in by the close of play.

Foremost in everyone’s mind going into day three was that no large fish had been boated. This meant that two of the daily pots were unclaimed and a last-day winner would collect those as well as the day three pot and the overall jackpot. This was a lot of cash up for grabs, and it might just take any eligible fish to collect the whole works.

As it turned out, no single fish caught that day was large enough to warrant a trip to the weigh station, even though there were 25 blue marlin and another five white marlin caught and released.

It was Captain Brent Gaskill’s Builder’s Choice that took tournament honours, beating out Wave Paver on time, as each boat had managed to score 3,000 points — no mean feat considering the less-than-stellar action of the three days. The lack of a qualifying fish meant that almost all of the jackpot monies defaulted to the winning boat, with only the largest game fish prize going to Team Harvey 82 with a 46-pound wahoo.

With many of the tournament’s boats participating in all three legs of the Bermuda Triple Crown, it was to be expected that the competition would be stiff. That it came down to five boats each scoring more than 6,000 points was nothing short of remarkable. That equated to a dozen or more blue marlin releases for each boat, which is no mean feat, particularly as the fishing was not as fast as it has been in recent years.

This is something that is hard to explain, given the number of imponderables at play in tournaments of this nature. The boats are all fishing the same body of water; while there may be several miles between craft that hook up, it is more often a situation where a single boat fishing alongside two or three others gets the bite, much to the dismay of the others. That this may happen several times in a row seemingly discounts random chance, but there are no other obvious explanations. One of the mysteries of deep-sea fishing.

However it comes about, there was no denying that Builder’s Choice ruled the roost, acquiring an amazing 6,750 points to take the 2025 Triple Crown. Providing an idea of just how stiff the competition was, second place was taken by Captain Russell Sinclair’s Wave Paver with 6,500 points and close up in third was Captain Colin Oxnard’s Fender Bender on 6,300 points.

This brought the formal Bermuda summer billfish season to an end, even though the fish will remain active for some time to come. There will be a more low-key event in a couple of weeks’ time to provide local boats with some excitement. While warm conditions have most local angling effort easing off, it is this week’s events onshore that will distract from any Tight Lines!!!!