THE Bacardi annual tournament went off as scheduled on Sunday with the fleet enjoying calm if humid conditions. While most previous such tournaments have seen large numbers of tuna weighed in, this year was a bit exceptional in that it was wahoo that was the dominant species.Many of the fish were of a nice mid-size from 30-40-odd pounds but there was a fish over 70 pounds that took a share of the honours. The biggest yellowfin was just shy of 60 pounds with a few other mid-sized tunas being brought to the weigh-in.

There were a few blackfin at the weigh station and these often surprised both some anglers and the audience when an apparently small fish weighed more than enough to qualify.

Perhaps a bit surprising was the fact that there were no eligible entries for the “Other” species category as all the entries were either wahoo or tuna.

In Class A the High Point Tuna went to Gilbert Amaral with a 55.6 pound yellowfin; Darius Martin won the High Point Wahoo award with a 33.5 fish.

The High Point Tuna in Class B went to Carlos Frias with a 59.4 pound yellowfin with C. Hirst taking the honours for High Point Wahoo with a 42.5 pounder.

In the professional class, the High Point Tuna was won by Sylvester Augustine with a 47.6 pound Allison while the top wahoo was caught by Jason Dawson with a really nice 72.4 pound wahoo.

The overall High Point Angler was Craig Thomas with three nice wahoo caught on Snatch for a total of 131.8 points. The High Point Lady Angler was Shawnette Smith with 76.8 points.

The High Point Boat in Class A Somberero <$>with Indigo e <$>the runner-up. The High Point Boat in Class B was BiMe <$>followed by runner up Controversy. The High Point Boat Overawas Snatch also scoring High Point Boat in Class C with 198.5 points, narrowly beating Nothing’s Easy into the class runner-up spot with 196.7 points.

All in all, there was a good turnout featuring plenty of fish that pleased the large number of onlookers at Dockyard and gave the organisers yet another fully successful event.

By reports, there were plenty of fish caught that were not brought to the weigh-in. Sometimes it is forgotten that the people on boats talk to each other, not to mention watch each other and so, if you know that someone already has a better fish than you, it simply might not be worth using up the time and fuel to go to a weigh-in.

As indicated by the outcome of this week’s tournament, there are still enough wahoo around to justify putting in the effort for them. As a funny aside, there is more than one fisherman who feels that the fish know when there is a tournament on. Catches in the double figures just a day or two before the weekend dwindled down to threes and fours over the tournament period. While there may be an argument for increased effort when a bunch of weekenders head offshore, there really does seem to be some sort of pattern.

Right now it is the tuna that aren’t behaving as they should. While there are some Allisons offshore, they haven’t settled down to where chumming is the ideal way of catching them. Presumably the wahoo will ease up shortly and more effort will go into looking for tuna but for the moment, things leave something to be desired.

A couple in search of tournament class tuna had to settle for something different when David and Dylis Pantry enjoyed a balmy day on the southeast corner of Challenger. Insofar as tuna were concerned, the solitude was anything but gratifying but things did improve when a wahoo invaded the chum slick. It took a piece of bait on 12-lb test rig and, 30 minutes later, Dylis made a fine light tackle catch, boating 55.25 pound wahoo.

Looking toward the ultimate in game fishing, doubters had better come out of the rocks and believe that there are blue marlin on the offshore grounds. These are easily numerous enough to justify putting in some time for them and carrying the gear appropriate to something that could quite easily weigh a half-ton. Both Capt. Alan Card&17;s Challenger and Capt. Allen DeSilva’s Mako <$>have consciously dragged over the deep water and both have had billfish action with the former actually boating a fish in the 500-pound bracket when it came up dead. Other boats have also reported raising and releasing blues and with at least two foreign boats here at the moment, the level of marlin activity is likely to move up a notch or two. June is the recognised start of the billfish season and that time is now. The RBYC and other marinas will be sprouting towers and outriggers over the next few weeks and it will be reasonable to expect ever-increasing activity with the likelihood of some real trophy fish being caught.The 8th annual IGFA Offshore World Championship concluded late last week in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Overall, there were 62 teams representing 40 countries with three of these having come about as a result of a Bermuda qualifying event.

It would be nice to be able to say that there was a sweep by Bermuda teams or even that they made a great showing. Sad to say, this was not the case, largely due to the seriously competitive nature of this tournament. Light tackle fishing almost exclusively for marlin is not for the faint-hearted and it does take some considerable luck to get into the fish and then to score sufficient points to make the top three.

The winners of last year’s Bermuda Anglers International Light Tackle Tournament afforded the best finish, coming in eighth place. Not at all bad considering the numbers that they were up against. The team that qualified as a result of the Sea Horse billfish tournament managed to come 44th while the other Bermuda team, defending a 2003 result slipped in in 57th position.

The total catch was 325 marlin, which if split among 62 teams fishing over four days gives an average of 1.3 fish per team per day. As it turned out, even the top three teams had at least one day with no points scored, showing that averages are indicators but can have little to do with individual results.

For the record, the winning team was from the Marina Rubicon Marlin Cup 2006, with second place going to a Cabo qualifying team with third going to the winners of a previous Caicos Billfish release tournament. It took a total of 4500 points (15 marlin) to win, just edging out the second place team which had 14 releases.

Back to the local scene, weather permitting, this weekend will see the Bermuda Fishing clubs and Sandys Boat Club both try (again) to get their tournaments off the ground. Here’s hoping for plenty of Tight lines!!!

[obox] The most wahoo caught in one day was on May 11, 1989 when 55 were caught by Stephen Cabral Sr., Alfred Basden and the late Eddie Dawson fishing on board the Lobster Reef which was owned then by the late Fritz Reiter.

Wahoo to be caught