A few of the early mornings this week had anglers thinking they were off Nantucket or Halifax Nova Scotia rather than Bermuda. Quite simply, we are not used to fog — even a light mist is out of the ordinary. So, the few boats that have, for various reasons, been outfitted with radar had a chance to use it when the island was greeted by morning fog. It actually started the night before and is a bit of an uncommon phenomenon here. A high humidity and the temperature combine to let the moisture condense out of the air and fog forms. When the sun warms the air the moisture goes back into the gas form and the air clears. While the fog looked pretty impressive on land, looking back at the island from offshore must have been interesting — mostly just a big cloud bank with no discernable or recognisable structures. Not for the faint-hearted or boaters who either lacked GPS or faith in their compasses and navigational ability.Going out was easy enough — it was the coming back that had the potential to turn nasty. Happily, the sun came out and did its thing, clearing things up. It is highly unlikely that this state of affairs is going to persist for any length of time. High summer is upon us and scorcher will probably be the norm for the next few months.

The Bermuda Fishing Clubs Annual Tournament (BFCAT) got off the ground on its first alternate date. This event has teams from the angling clubs competing against each other with the major awards on each line test going to the club rather than any individual angler.

On 8-lb test the winning team was Sea Horse Anglers Club (201 points); on 12-lb test Bermuda Anglers Club came through with 490 points and on 16-lb test Sea Horse took the honours with 63 points. Moving to the heavier line classes, the 20-lb test award was won by Bermuda Anglers with a whopping 2,111 points while Sea Horse Anglers collect the 30-lb award with 307 points. The major prize for High Point Club was won by Bermuda Anglers with a total of 2,663 points.

The catch of the tournament was a 91 pound yellowfin tuna caught on 20-lb test by Crayton Greene aboard Brain Lines’ Off Piste. This fine catch accounted for 2,172 points that won Crayton the High Point Angler award and provided most of the 2,663 points that won the High Point Boat honours.

The prizes for the High Point Fish on the individual line classes were as follow: on 8-lb test an 8.5 pound bonita caught by Lianna Aggarwal; on 12-lb test a 14.4 pound bonita caught by Brian Lines; on 16-lb test a 12.7 pound bonita also caught by Lianna Aggarwal. The 20-lb test category was blown away by Crayton Greene’s yellowfin while Terry Hart took the 30-lb test honours with a 50.2 pound yellowfin.

Another event, the Sandys Boat Club Tournament was fished concurrently with the BFCAT with each weigh-in accepting fish entered at the other venue.

As might be imagined, many of the fish entered in one tournament were also entered in the other. So it was that Lianna Aggarwal won the 8-lb and 16-lb test categories; Crayton Greene’s yellowfin assured him the 20-lb test prize and Terry Hart won the 30-lb test award. The difference was that the 12-lb test award went to Leslie Spanswick with a nice 29.8 pound dolphin. There was no entry of 50-lb test, a category recognised by the Sandys tournament. The High Point Boat was Off Piste <$>and Crayton Greene was High Point Angler.

While it was expected that yellowfin tuna would dominate the landings in both tournaments, the fact of the matter was that it was primarily characterised by a mixed bag which included dolphin, almaco jack, rainbow runner and wahoo.

At the moment it is the wahoo fishing that is providing the bulk of the action. Amazingly, this is becoming a bit tedious for commercial fishermen because the market is pretty well saturated due to the abundance of wahoo. Just this week, Blake West’s Troubadour had over 30 wahoo on a morning trip that was curtailed. Other boats have also had half days that got well into the double digits. The action has been spread out with the latest big hits coming on Bermuda’s Edge, notably toward the eastern end of the island. While excellent at the moment, this is unlikely to continue so now might just be an opportune time to try and take advantage of this prolonged spring run.

Those who prefer chumming to trolling should note that there are some yellowfin tuna around but they just have not set up the way they usually do. Some think that this is due to the water temperature being a mite on the low side but with the tropical species found pretty much everywhere offshore, it is hard to reconcile this. Most people are of the view that the summer pattern is a few weeks behind normal and the present wahoo run will gradually peter out and then the tuna will start to dominate the scene. A concerted effort should get a few fish up with the norm being school-sized but some considerably larger fish are around but tend to be inconsistent. It helps if you can get them within sight; that can help determine which tackle to use.

In the meantime, it would pay not to totally ignore the chumming scene. There have been a lot of trophy-size blackfin that have been ignored for years now with their yellowfin relatives getting the bulk of the attention. Anchor up a little shallower, even on top of the bank and you should be able to get into some of these scrappers that are ideal for light tackle.

One of the more positive reports, at least as far as chummers are concerned, not to mention the commercial fleet, is that there is a large crop of bonita (Almaco jack) around at the moment. Many of the chummers looking for Allisons have found schools of bonitas ranging from small fish in the three to five pound category on up to more serious fish bettering the 20-pound mark. There are probably some nice amberjack out there as well, another species that is not a particular target but is a fine game fish.

Speaking of which, with foreign sport fishing boats arriving almost daily, the deep water is starting to produce marlin fairly consistency. Thus far, although numbers are not particularly large, the fish have been more than respectable. There have been a couple in the 400-500 pound bracket and a visiting boat reportedly released a fish estimated at better than 600 pounds. Doubt not that dragging a line over the deep will eventually result in some very Tight lines!!!