What about that weather call? Last Saturday, despite near perfect fishing conditions, the organisers of the Bermuda Fishing Clubs Annual Tournament decided to postpone their event slated for Sunday. They put a lot of faith into the forecast that conditions would deteriorate rapidly and the winds would howl on Sunday with the seas turning downright nasty. And, boy, were they right to do so.

To be fair, the weather towards the end of the week had been considered “grouchy” at the very least and expectations midweek for the tournament were in limbo.

What came as something of a surprise was the sudden calm that greeted anglers on Saturday morning, which caused quite a few to take advantage of the situation and to head offshore.

As it turned out, it was not the best fishing day but, by no means, not the worst either. Catches consisted primarily of wahoo, although one boat did catch a rather nice yellowfin tuna in the 50lb-plus range. That, in itself, was interesting because yellowfin tuna are very much school fish and, one would think that where there was one nice tuna there should be others. While this is likely to be true, an issue with trolling for tuna is the fact that both the boat and the fish are on the move, quite possibly in different directions.

This can mean that the tuna, which are fast moving fish, simply leave the hooked fish alone to face its challenges while they continue on their way. When chumming for tuna, the bait draws the fish to the boat where they will remain at the buffet, until the bait runs out or they lose interest. With the trolling, because catching a tuna can take a while, it is often near impossible to relocate the school and elicit another strike.

Looking at the wahoo, most of the fish caught where schoolies in the 25- to 30lb-range, likely forerunners of the main spring run which still seems to be in the future.

Although the weather would make some think that winter was about to return, there is no question that the sea around the island is warming up and that seems to be the driving force for fish migrations. Just over 1,000 miles to the south, the billfishing in the Bahamas is in full swing with the various tournaments there boasting both blue and white marlin as well as sailfish. Many of those fish are headed in this general direction and, when the speed at which these fish can move is taken into consideration, the distance can be covered in days rather than weeks or months.

It is the other side of the Atlantic that should be of concern to all the billfish tournament organisers here in the west. Right now, the boats fishing the Cape Verde Islands are having absolutely phenomenal blue marlin action. Granted, there are not all that many boats working what is a rather large area in comparison to the bottom available here in Bermuda and many other places, but when the boats are getting as many as ten or more shots in a day that is truly epic.

What makes this even more remarkable is the sheer size of the fish. The vast majority are in excess of 500lb, and while these are all released that must be accounting for a good portion of the local marlin population.

Some things to consider: the Cape Verde Islands are considerably farther south than most people think, usually assuming that they are close to the Azores or Madeira. In geographical context, Madeira is on a similar latitude to that of Bermuda with the Azores a bit farther north. The positioning of these three island groups probably explain why their respective billfish seasons commence a bit later on in the year.

Another thing is just how intermixed the billfish populations are. Are they separate as in east and west Atlantic or north and south? Might it just be one big population that moves all around the ocean, giving apparent periods of abundance at a location followed by a dearth a season later? Sadly, despite the amount of scientific work done, there is little known about the travel dynamics of the billfish species.

In the normal scheme of things blue marlin are due to show up here at any time now, with numbers gradually building as the summer approaches. It is to be hoped that the quality of the fish here will continue to be as it has been in recent years and that the larger fish have not diverted eastward. Time will tell.

There is likely to be little fishing done this weekend despite the forecast looking acceptable for most boats. The various festivities associated with the celebration of motherhood are rather far-reaching and, for certain individuals, disappearing for the best part of the day is very likely to be frowned upon. This would appear to be one of those times when discretion might indeed be the better part of Tight Lines!!!