The weather last weekend provided a plausible excuse but that will not hold water this weekend. The forecast is for gentle breezes and light seas and if you haven’t noticed the days are actually getting shorter and this long-awaited summer is already on its way out. Don’t leave things too late to enjoy some of the world’s best angling.

Trolling is giving way to chumming. Charter boats limited to working Bermuda’s Edge continue to manage a wahoo or two fairly consistently but the action is not what it was. Still plenty good enough to impress an overseas client and provide some top quality steaks.

The same will hold true around the Banks, where the odd wahoo will please but there one can add on the potential for a hungry yellowfin or maybe a dolphinfish or white marlin to grab the moving bait.

For reasons not specified, the Royal Bermuda Regiment Tournament has again been moved to an alternate date, this time Sunday, July 26. This is the 72nd such tournament even though the Regiment itself is only 60 years old. Quite apart from being the oldest competition on the local tournament calendar, this event is truly old school, reflecting its origins, as borne out by some of the categories and awards.

The event predates things such as the lower line classes and, as a result, many of the prizes are for specified catches on certain line classes. This goes back to the day when sportfishing was in its infancy in Bermuda. Think about it, 72 years ago was only nine years after the end of World War Two, tourism was feeling its way in a new world and, at that point, most local fishing was intended to catch fish to eat.

Some of the categories in the Regiment tournament are for the highest average weight of fish caught by a team and the highest average weights. These can include all sorts of fish, including bottom dwellers. The line class awards, which now feature fairly prominently were an adaptation to keep up with the times as sportfishing grew into its own in the 1960s and 1970s.

Also reflective of the time, many of the awards are limited to active servicemen. Back in those days that could have been from the US military, the Royal Navy or even the Canadian forces. Over the years, this has been modified to include things like the police and fire services, but the roots are clear enough.

Although this event is still some weeks away, it will come at a time well suited to its original purposes. The obsession with billfish will have worn off and the fleet will have reverted back to concentrating on the more traditionally sought-after species. Wahoo and tuna will feature but the former will have settled into a summer lethargy and the blackfin tuna is the more active tuna in the warm summer water.

Smaller game species like rainbow runner and various jacks will be active and here is one of the areas that play right into the object of the tournament. Ambers and bonitas (Almaco jack — a close relative of the amberjack) are usually abundant during the late summer and if the current catches of boats like Hakuna Matata are any indication, there should be plenty to swell participants’ fish boxes.

While numbers usually come from bonitas, which form large schools and often remain in a baited up area for a time, it is the ambers that offer the sportsmen a real challenge.

Amberjack tend to grow big in Bermuda. The men’s 20, 30 and 80lb test records are all held here, although the all-tackle and 130lb test records both hail from Japan. The other records are scattered over the globe with Florida figuring in many of them. Some experts suspect that the farther north with cooler water and maybe a longer life span for ambers is what makes Bermuda and Japan producers of the largest fish.

Anglers should also be aware that large amberjack, say 30 to 40lb, tend to travel in pairs. When a decent amber is caught drift fishing it pays to run up and go over the same area; it often results in an almost identical amberjack. At any size, these reef dwellers that also favour wrecks and other structure will always give a good account of themselves on almost any tackle, a hallmark of their jack heritage.

The first organised billfish competition gets under way this weekend. A much more locals-friendly event than the World Cup or Triple Crown, this is an all-release event in which the accepted angling rules are suspended to encourage participation, particularly from novices venturing into what is normally the province of highly skilled teams that do nothing but fish for marlin with highly sophisticated equipment. All that is off the table this weekend. Entry fees are far more user-friendly as well.

Those with deeper pockets and higher ambitions will be looking at next Saturday’s Blue Marlin World Cup. The sign up deadline is 6pm EST on July 2 and must be done online. This game is not only for the rich but also for the want-to-be famous and all that is going to take is one set of some incredibly Tight Lines.