Confused or what? Here it is, February — normally the month of our winter’s discontent, marked by rainy skies, gales, hail and the thought that global warming has given way to nuclear winter — acting completely out of character.

Anoraks, woolly sweaters, fur hats and boots have all had to stay in the closet as spring and almost summer-like conditions have persisted, with daily highs in the seventies. Almost every day has proved to be fishable, either inside the breaker line or out on the broad briny, with some of them being positively halcyon.

If confusion does indeed reign in your mind, take strength that you are not the only product of nature that is in such a quandary. The fish seem to be unsure also as to what the season is and where they should be. Maybe even they are unsure as to what it is that they are supposed to be doing because if it is water temperature that defines migratory movements, then they, literally, don’t know if they are coming or going!

This is best illustrated by some of the effort put in over last weekend and the early part of this week. One casual expedition involved trolling from an outboard-powered centre console, not normally the optimum in fishing machines.

The location chosen to try their luck was the Southwest Edge and, although they finally went home almost empty-handed, they were successful in establishing that there are indeed some fish to be had. On several occasions, their deep troll rod keeled over and large amounts of line parted company with the reel, only to have the hooks come unstuck, thereby releasing again to the wild fish estimated to be respectably sized wahoo.

Less fortunate than the putative wahoo was a mackerel. Not just any mackerel, which normally weigh two to three pounds, but a rather impressive version of the same that had long ago said goodbye to 10lbs. Bearing in mind that the world records for little tunny (the proper name for what we term “mackerel”) range on up to about 30lbs with almost all the local line test records in the 20-plus range, this suggests that maybe a bit of concerted effort in that direction would pay off.

Something that springs to mind is that if there are such mackerel out there, what else might there be. The logic is that the predators follow the bait and are seldom much removed from each other on either a spatial or temporal basis. So, if mackerel are bait, albeit large bait at times, what else could be lurking out there.

Bottom line: just about everything.

Capt James Robinson’s Wound Up was enjoying (especially considering what time of year it is) a bit of chumming on Challenger Bank. Both the usual local species of tuna, the yellowfin and blackfin were pleasing and providing a bit of action even if they were not the largest specimens of their respective species when they were dwarfed, as one of their largest relatives roiled its way through the chumslick before latching on to a 50lb test rig that was set to catch tuna.

All doubts were dispelled when the fishing party saw what could only have been a bluefin take the chum offering and head off for the wild blue yonder with no intention of having the drag on the rod turn its head. So there is at least one such monster out there.

Think this through. The first bluefin caught here in living memory, and that was all of 35 years ago, was made in the early summer (June 8) by the Card brothers when they operated the original Challenger. More recent captures both on rod and reel, and on longline, have come during the shoulder season.

The wintry months have not figured because the weather generally precludes fishing effort and the fish are thought to be making their way over to Europe or the Gulf of Mexico, with spawning on their mind. Tuna are all schooling fish, so there must be others around here — a strong case for getting the heavy gear out.

And if that were not enough, consider a commercial boat that was enjoying a very mixed bag indeed. Not only did wahoo and tuna fit into the mix, but so did dolphin (mahi-mahi). Noted as a truly tropical species that enjoys the warmest of warm water, the question is immediately begged: what is that doing here at this time of the year?

Again, it is highly unlikely that there is just the odd one in all the water surrounding the Island. It could be argued that maybe it forgot to leave when winter temperatures, set in but that takes you back to the beginning: the water is a lot warmer than usual, so maybe they are just here earlier than usual.

In any case, perhaps the clincher is that the boat doing the trolling then had a rod scream off a great deal of line attached to a fish that has no problem alerting the angler to his challenge. In this case, a blue marlin estimated at somewhere between 300lbs and 400lbs proceeded to put on a show before becoming unstuck but leaving the crew in no doubt that things are happening offshore.

The message here is now clear: winter is not having the impact on the angling that it usually does and the fishing may well run a good long way ahead of itself.

On this note, the inshore waters are more susceptible to temperature changes, but even these are notably warmer than usual as per the daily weather reports. The normal situation is that the year’s lowest water temperatures are recorded around now, usually somewhere near the lower limit for coral species, which is why Bermuda hosts the farthest northern coral reefs. This year, those corals would be quite happy because the water temperature will not be stressing them and the increase that comes as the days lengthen will only benefit them.

With such conditions dominating, expect to see mackerel and maybe even jacks moving into the harbours and bays in the very near future. Grey snapper may have to turn to sentry duty sooner rather than later because they will return to patrol the shadows of moored boats and the shady side of docks. All told, as the prophets may say, these are signs that one should get the boat and gear ready for what could be a wonderfully long season of Tight Lines!!!