It is tough to be a weekend angler as the weather seems to know this and plays havoc accordingly. It seems that the most fishable weather only occurs midweek when so many have to be at their day jobs.

While one has to plug away at whatever it is they do, the charter fleet has been taking advantage of those good days and making hay as it were.

Captain Russell Young’s Sea Wolfe has been making the most of half- day charters to Bermuda’s Edge and has racked up a nice score on wahoo. The vast majority of these fish wherever they are caught are now school fish but, every so often, a larger one comes along. That was the case with Captain Scott Barnes’ Hakuna Matata when their day’s haul included a wahoo that bettered the 60lb mark.

Trips to the Banks have also been productive. Hakuna Matata had one day that included a nice selection of species including both wahoo and yellowfin tuna. Some of the tuna running at the moment seem to be in the 60 to 65lb range. Nice fish on any tackle at any time.

Captain Alan Card’s Challenger has had shots at a few white marlin and scored success with most of these. Great light tackle fish but not really the target of anglers working the really deep water. Transitioning to heavier gear, Challenger also met with some attention from some early season blue marlin.

With a narrow weather opening over the past weekend, Saturday saw a number of boats heading offshore to sample the late spring angling. As suggested previously, trolling rigs meant for wahoo over the deep water would be tantamount to a red flag to a bull if there were any blue marlin about. As also predicted they were and Mark James had just such a run-in when a blue marlin took a flyer fished from an outrigger a long way back. Originally meant for a wahoo, the tackle was a 50lb test set-up and, by chance, the marlin in question was eminently suitable. Being brought to boatside the fish was figured to be about 200lb. A fine catch and the first blue of the season.

That same day, Captain Adam Hines’s Legasea hooked into a blue marlin of the type that wins tournaments. After the battle a fish estimated at 750lb was brought to boatside and duly released.

More typical of the early season billfish usually found here, this was a fish of the sort that attract boats from the US East Coast and elsewhere in their search for the ultimate big game fish. Already a couple of these sport fishers are appearing at the Yacht Club and elsewhere. The real influx of such sportfishing boats will not start until after the Newport–Bermuda Yacht Race simply because berthing space isn’t available until after the race boats have departed.

By then the Blue Marlin World Cup fever will be well and truly raging. Boats come here not only for the Bermuda Triple Crown set of tournaments but also because of the Island’s reputation as a big fish hotspot and a previous supplier of winners for the big July 4th event. What brings the biggies here is pretty much anybody’s guess but the sheer number of big blues being caught in the eastern Atlantic has to have anglers wondering just how many are in the ocean and will a contingent of them show up here. Or does the species somehow split into groups of different sizes which tend to stick to certain geographic limits? This will remain to be seen.

Leaving the big fish to the big boats and those besotted with billfish, some will have noted that a popular reef species has figured quite prominently in commercial fishermen’s hauls recently. These are the yellowtail snapper. Aside from being well-regarded as a food fish, they are a recognised game fish and can give a great account of themselves on suitable tackle. Bermuda yellowtails get big – a lot bigger than they seem to occur throughout the rest of their range. In fact, of the 14 line class records (men’s and women’s) kept by the IGFA for this species, eight are held in Bermuda. This includes the all-tackle record which is a locally caught 11lb specimen. Two line classes are vacant and the other four are held on the lightest line classes from Florida.

Yellowtail are considered a reef fish with the best results coming over the deeper reef areas around the Island. The crown of the Bank is also home to mammoth specimens although there can be stiff competition from sharks. Chumming is the preferred method of going after these snappers, but plain old-fashioned bottom fishing can also get results. Anyone fancying a shot at the vacant men’s or women’s record categories should know that they are for the 20lb test class with a minimum qualifying weight of 10lb. For sure, any yellowtail that size guarantees some very Tight Lines!!!