Strange days indeed. Just how strange may never be known due to the paucity of effort from anglers. Commercial operators have shifted their focus onto those fish that market best along with lobsters and are thus less interested in the “sporty” species.

Charter fishermen, always a good indicator of the offshore scene, have also been less active simply because of the lack of clients at this time of the year. At this stage many amateurs have taken their craft out of service either because they have been mothballed for the season or moved to some yard where they will spend the winter.

This is all a bit unfortunate because the markedly better than normal weather pattern seems bent on persisting — for how long no one knows — but it does allow for some unlikely but quality angling in October.

Boats working the briny continue to catch wahoo fairly consistently and while the expected hectic action has failed to materialise, no one is going to complain when it is possible to boat a mixed bag of wahoo, dolphinfish and tuna. Quite obviously, the waters around the Banks and Edge are still warm enough to keep the small game species like rainbow runner and jacks around. With such resources readily available, it is not too difficult to put together an entertaining day afloat. This is in stark contrast to years gone by when most angling would be merely a memory at this stage.

Having said that, it is time to draw attention to another largely unsung local species. Considered one of the seventeen recognised game fish by the Bermuda Game Fishing Association, this species has had a varied history. Although it makes the local game list, it is only listed in the all-tackle category by the International Game Fish Association.

The fish in question is the Bermuda chub. How it got this moniker is anyone’s guess because the fish is found just about everywhere in the world with tropical or subtropical waters, inclusive of the Mediterranean Sea. Elsewhere it can bear the name chub or drummer usually prefaced by something else.

They are not a particularly large species; the world all tackle record is just over 13lb and while this is a large chub, two of the local line test records exceed it with the 12lb test record weighing in at 16lb 10 oz. The fact that this record dates back to 1965 explains some of why this species has had its moment of glory.

Back in the early days of sportfishing here, when Bermuda was starting to appear on the angling map, the chub was noted as a readily accessible fish over both the reefs and near the shore. It would give a good account of itself on the light tackle that the island was become famous for. In fact, it got to be so much in demand for visiting anglers that local guides actually used spiny lobster as the preferred bait for chub. This would be incomprehensible today as the chub has always been considered almost worthless as a food fish locally. Many who tried it said that it would curl up in the pan and was tough. At that time, there was no way it would earn a mention against the grouper species which were still the backbone of the commercial fishery.

Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s the local chub population had something of a population explosion and a handful of chum over any reef area usually saw the water turn black as a mass of these fish would appear from seemingly nowhere and monopolise the chum slick, making catching snappers or anything else nigh on impossible. Eventually numbers dwindled back to normal and nowadays they remain common but way less abundant than back then.

In an effort to make the then ubiquitous chub marketable, the FAO Fisheries Project that came to Bermuda and set up a fish processing plant, tried to use chub for a variety of products but there was extremely limited success and the whole idea soon died on the vine.

Nowadays the Bermuda chub remains a local game fish but there is precious little said of them. While they are caught on hook and line reasonably frequently, anglers have ignored them and anyone looking for a fish to eat will do their best not to catch one. For some reason, the population has never achieved another expansion as it did back then and so it remains a reminder of days gone by.

One strange perfectly natural phenomenon concerning the Bermuda chub is that one in every, some great number, is a genetic sport and is very obviously a bright yellow or gold. These are rare but stand out markedly when in the midst of a school of the grey looking chubs tearing through the chum. Perhaps, like at the end of the rainbow, this might be the object of an angler seeking Tight Lines!!!