Wow, Igor comes and goes and the fishing effort ebbs like the parting of the Res Sea. The commercial fleet is putting the emphasis on lobsters with only a few boats still concentrating on wahoo and tuna or bottom fish. The amateurs seem to have called it a day and left boats on blocks or nearly abandoned on their moorings until the spring brings a renewed interest in fishing.

To be fair, what fishing has been done has met with pretty poor results. Although there were some wahoo and yellowfin tuna and even a few dolphin around pre-Igor, they are currently very thin on the ground. The arrival of some frigate mackerel seemed promising but even they have done a runner and are proving very difficult to locate. Combine their dispersal with the limited amount of effort being put in, and the lack of fish is easily explained.

A few hearty souls ventured forth last weekend and although conditions were more than acceptable the fishing was, in a word, slow. The bottom produced a few coneys and the occasional hind but there was nothing like a boatload of anything caught.

It will remain to be seen if things are going to pick up but experience suggests that some decent fishing can be had on into October and even early November. If the cold fronts don't start blowing through with regularity, we can expect some fishable conditions to endure for the next few weeks at least.

From a seasonal standpoint, the water is still warm enough for both common tuna species even though the yellowfin are a lot more migratory than the seemingly resident blackfin. Wahoo generally persist throughout the year and it should be possible to catch a few as long as the conditions allow trolling. It can pay to keep an eye on any baitfish that turn up and to try to use baits or lures that mimic them. It will be a case of wait and see for the balance of the year.

Despite the publicity given to endangered species like the Bengal tiger, whales and plants that most of us have never heard of, very little attention has ever been focused on fish species. The amazing thing is that just about all of us come into contact with these animals either directly, as on menus as catch of the day, or indirectly as in being offered for sale in supermarkets.

By supporting, or not countering the continued sale of such species, we are contributing to their demise. What is really interesting is that many of them have only been exploited in recent years and the marketing people have had a field day with them.

Amongst these species are the Chilean sea bass. Often found on menus and in supermarkets, the actual name for this species is Patagonian toothfish. Although it is quite nice eating, the life history of this fish makes it particularly susceptible to overfishing and that is rapidly becoming the situation as the species is exploited beyond sustainable levels.

The New Zealand hoki ( also known as the blue grenadier) serves up a nice white fillet that has found a favourable reception in fast food outlets. Unfortunately just recently Greenpeace which is a watchdog for over-exploited species has added this fish to a list which calls into question the sustainability of the fishery.

For various reasons, many of the species in question have been found in the Southern Ocean, a name given to the waters of the lower southern hemisphere (they are actually parts of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans). They tend to fished for by Australia, New Zealand, and South American countries. Because of the relative remoteness of their habitat it is only recently that they have become a target of major fisheries.

A prime candidate is the orange roughy. This species avoided the world's fisheries by virtue of the fact that it lives at some depth and was only discovered by the mid-water trawl (nets) fishery around about 1990. What makes it so vulnerable is that it is a long-lived fish, taking as many as 30 years to mature. So, basically, the fishery reaped the benefit of a population that had been untouched for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The long maturation time, coupled with slow growth means that the population is extremely susceptible to over-fishing and within a few years it was fairly obvious that the stock was in trouble.

Some of the other species in question have received tremendous publicity and regularly make the headlines. These include the Atlantic cod, that ubiquitous fish that the whole world has been exposed to over the years and which formed the basis of a massive fishery. The species is now in very short supply and while overfishing is generally blamed for its demise, recent investigations have suggested that changes in climate and other factors have also had an effect on the dwindling population.

The plight of the Atlantic bluefin tuna has been well-documented but the incredibly high price that they fetch has kept them on the market. The rest of the problem doesn't take a rocket scientist to define.

More people in the world in need of more sources of food is slowly but surely pushing fish stocks to extremes that they may never recover from. Part of the problem with fishing and, yes, we have seen local examples of this happening; is that as long as there is a profit to be made, someone will try to catch the last fish, as it were.

It takes a collapse in the market to effect a real reduction in fishing effort. As the fish become scarcer, more effort is thrown into trying to catch them but once they have been caught, filleted and eaten, they won't be able to contribute to replacing the population.

The world has tried to be responsive, at least to some extent. A major Canadian supermarket chain has agreed to take some of these species off their shelves but does that just open the door for less scrupulous retailers to take advantage of their decision?

Sustainability is a pressing question for a lot of the earth's resources and there is the added issue of who is entitled to them. Back in the day, as we so frequently say, the ability to pay pretty much dictated who got what. Might was right and the powerful be it economically or in military terms, got he cream of the crop. Talk about raising environmental and moral questions with a distinct lack of sound answers! Might we be creating a moral dilemma for ourselves and the rest of mankind? Happily, none of us have to come up with the answers but maybe we can spare a thought for the bigger picture every time we indulge in some Tight lines!!!