Anyone who thought that the offshore could have done with a good shaking up really got what they wanted earlier this week when Rafael moseyed on by, drenching the Island with much desired rain and doing little damage beyond rewriting some schedules and plunging a few homes into temporary darkness.Its approach had some of the lobster fishermen feverishly moving their gear into safer locations and their first order of business following the passage of the storm has been to redeploy the tarps where they are most likely to score big catches.It is for this reason that there is little new to report on the state of fishing around the Island. Bottom-bouncing continues to be one of the preferred tactics as it conserves fuel and yields the types of fish that are readily marketable.There is little doubt that a bit of trolling effort around Bermuda’s Edge will produce a few wahoo; they never seem to ever totally leave although there are definitely times when they are more numerous. One thing about this time of year is that there are fewer boats putting in any effort so if you locate a small concentration you won’t have to share the bite with anyone and might well manage several fish. The average size is usually better than the run-of-the-mill summer fish and can quite often be downright respectable. Another perceived advantage, at least, from the angler’s point of view, is that wahoo caught in cooler water put up a better battle than the fish caught during the warm summer months.Chumming might well turn up some of the lesser sought species. There are often large mackerel around for some reason hefty fish in the better than ten-pound bracket often show up in October and although there is nothing special about them from a commercial or bait point of view, they do offer some class light tackle action and, just maybe, a shot at a world record.There may be a few yellowfin around although going after this specifically could be problematic. Working a bit shallower should lure some blackfin into the slick but these may not be the desired species if a sushi dinner is planned.As states previously, a generalised approach mixing a bit of trolling early and later in the day with some bottom fishing is probably the best way of ensuring that there is something to put into the freezer at the end of the day.For those of you who follow such things; the International Game Fish Association, sport fishing’s authoritative and governing body, released information on the first year of the IGFA Great Marlin Race (IGMR), stating that the event has come to a close, with six tagging events helping to deploy 23 satellite tags in blue and black marlin in three oceans.A total of 11,484 nautical miles have thus far been tracked from the tags on these majestic game fish, but one tag alone accounts for 41 percent of that distance that which belonged to team Texas-Scot Connection, sponsored by Trevor Somny, Bruce McKee, and Bill Crawford during the Club Nautico de San Juan 58th Annual Billfish Tournament that was held in Puerto Rico September 5-11, 2011.This well-travelled marlin, traversed the Atlantic Ocean covering 4,776 nm. The tag, placed in a 260kg (575lb) blue marlin, has officially won the first year of the IGMR. It also represents the longest track ever recorded from an electronic tag in a marlin.Although that particular tag covered the lion’s share of the distance that has been reported back from the satellite tags so far, the second and third place tags also made notable journeys. The second place tag, deployed in a 100kg (220lb) blue marlin during the 2012 GAMEX/Australian International Billfish Tournament in March, travelled 1,035 nm and popped up 310 nm west of Java, Indonesia.Following close behind in third place was the tag which travelled 1,018 nm, rounding the Cape of Good Hope after it was deployed in a 150kg (330lb) blue marlin during the Fourth Colombia Billfish Classic, hosted by the South Africa Deep Sea Angling Association and held on the Indian Ocean side of the country in February of 2012.In the IGFA statement Dr. Randy Kochevar, IGMR co-chair and Stanford University marine biologist was quoted as saying: “These fish are covering incredible distances,” Dr. Randy Kochevar. “The data we are collecting through the IGFA Great Marlin Race are giving us a new level of insight about where these fish are travelling, and how they are using their open ocean habitat.”Scientists and anglers alike are now eagerly waiting for tags to begin reporting back from the IGMR tagging events that have taken place in Portugal, Spain, and Hawaii in the USA in the past few months. This year’s tags have been programmed to pop up after 180 days, so even more data should be available shortly.All this brings us back to a long-standing argument from a number of professional sport fishing boat skippers. They believe that the scientific findings are also used by commercial operations to fine tune their exploitation of the billfish populations and to further reduce the number of fish available to the sporting industries. A salient point that they make is that the sport fishing interests overwhelmingly release or “recycle” their fish and that the economic impact of bill fishing is far greater than that offered by the capture fishery.That very argument has been put forward locally when observations were made on the relative worth of hosting a large number of foreign sport fishing boats here during the summer months. Despite the small number of fish that were killed and weighed in, the amount of “spin off” money generated far exceeded any possible value that the fish may have had as food or bait.With the United States now legislatively removed as a marlin market, much of the fishes’ commercial value may have disappeared and the world’s high seas fishing fleets may take a more conservative approach to marlin. The usual thinking and, sad but true, usually correct assessment is that the fish will be boated anyway and then turned into fillet or some other indistinguishable fish product that can be sold somewhere as something, even as fish meal or fertiliser. Sadly, a really ignominious end for a mighty predator that had few peers in its ocean realm.No real competitive events on the calendar now and with ever deteriorating sea conditions as winter starts to tighten its grip on the Island, there will be less and less opportunities for venturing out onto the briny. For the most part this year’s fishing season is over for the sportsman and from now on, the only anglers will be those looking to put a bit of fish away for those months when it is pretty much impossible to go in search of Tight lines!!!