Plenty of fish out there, that is for sure. Boats are enjoying some nice hauls of wahoo and mixed bags consisting primarily of yellowfin tuna and wahoo with the occasional other species tucked in for good measure.

Rather surprisingly, some of the fastest wahoo action has come from Bermuda’s Edge, where one boat scooped up a dozen earlier this week. Most of the other good hauls have come off Challenger Bank, where most boats tend to ply the bulk of their trade.

The season’s first blue marlin was caught and released last week by George Powell, fishing aboard Andrew Card’s Reel Action. The fish, caught on an 80-lb test rig, took a ton of line and gave the angler a serious workout before they released the close to 300-pound blue.

It won’t take a rocket scientist to work out that where there was one blue marlin, there should be plenty of others. While the local charter fleet is somewhat limited to the amount of effort they can put in; because barring a charter specific for billfish, they have a restricted amount of time each trip that can be put in for billfish. Regardless of this limitation, they will start to gradually rack up their fair share over the next few months. Most of this action will come while traversing the Churn between the Edge and the Banks where chumming for tuna is the big attraction for most visiting anglers.

The first of the foreign boats have arrived and those boats are almost totally dedicated to working the deep blue water for marlin and will probably provide the best intelligence on the numbers and quality of the fish offshore.

Now, there are three natural phenomenon that might have an impact on local angling over the next few weeks.

The first is the ingression of seaweed. There are massive amounts of this washing up on beaches in the Caribbean, thus far nothing approaching that extent has been seen near Bermuda, but it would only take a shift in the wind to make a huge difference. With the reliance on trolling by big game boats, an arrival of such would be a true game changer.

Reports from Florida and elsewhere along the US East Coast suggest that sharks are more numerous this year and more likely to attack fish that are hooked. This is not something that happens too often here although during the spring and early summer it is not uncommon for mako sharks to shred the odd hooked wahoo, leaving the angler with little more than a head. It remains to be seen if this will prove to be an issue here.

The most likely event may well have already started. This is the arrival of the shearwaters. These seabirds undertake long distance migrations and by the time they are in the vicinity of Bermuda they are starving and will eat nearly anything. Hence their annoyance to anglers, especially chummers, who will have birds arrive right behind their boats and simply guzzle up all the chum. They can even dive down to feed on chum ten feet or more below the surface, leaving nothing to attract any fish. Sometimes, they will magically appear just when the first handful of chum goes into the water.

Baits with hooks are fair game too and it is not uncommon to “catch” a bird and to have the unenviable task of trying to unhook the rather fearsome-looking creature with a large beak. In reality, the birds are fairly docile and, if placed in a boat, are usually unable to take off as they need to start off with a run over the water to get up to flight speed.

Another factor and one that is indisputable and totally uncontrollable is the weather. The bane of the amateur who only has weekends to work with, there is nothing that can be done.

The poor weather conditions last weekend forced a postponement of the Blue Waters Anglers Club Open Tournament, and the organisers will be looking to make a weather call to try and hold it this weekend. This can prove very frustrating for organisers and their sponsors as the tournament schedule is fairly tight throughout the year, and it takes from both events if the limelight has to be shared with another.

In the expectation that the Open goes ahead this weekend, looking ahead has the 71st (impressive!) Warrant Officers and Sergeant’s Mess Tournament, more familiarly known as the Regiment Tournament, slated for June 15. There is a modest entry fee and entry forms can be had from a wide variety of locations: angling clubs, marine fuel stations and Regimental HQ.

So, good fishing yet to be had with the weekend warriors anxiously waiting for the weather to be more cooperative and for Mother Nature to spare them the ills mentioned above. Good sea conditions, an abundance of bait and the summer influx of game fish can only mean Tight Lines!!