The season's swansong is upon us.

After the summer has sped by, we are now into the cusp of the autumn with not all that many fishing days left to the amateur. The weather usually puts paid to weekend plans once the winter pattern sets in and that cannot be too far away.

Happily, looking at the longer range forecast, it appears that conditions tomorrow should be amenable to a day afloat and The Royal Gazette Wahoo Tournament should go off as planned. Whether or not the fish will please remains another matter but if the past is anything to judge the future by, then the usual pros will doubtlessly produce their fair share of fish.

While there are those who suspect that these people have some unfair advantage when it comes to catching fish, the fact of the matter is that; for the most part, they just do the basics right. Oh, sure, they keep on top of the situation and pretty much know where the action is but that is just about as far as it goes. They do not have a crystal ball that tells them where the fish are going to be tomorrow or what mood they are going to be in.

Experience can help because fish are creatures of habit, long ingrained by Mother Nature and what happened last year and the year before that, is likely to occur again. So that provides some clue as to where to look. There may be some other indeterminate factors but there isn't anything so special that the average weekend angler can make the same sort of judgements and try and push the odds into their favour.

For one, even if you haven't been out for a week or two, it doesn't take rocket science to determine where the action has been. Although some commercial fishermen tend to be a bit secretive, most will volunteer that they caught their fish on Challenger or Argus or on the Edge. The trick is then to decide whether or not the fish will stay there or move on to a different venue.

Again a bit of careful deductive thinking can help sort this out. Fish are where they are for a reason. The most basic reason is the availability of food. As the bait runs out, the fish move on. If bait is plentiful or at least in reasonable supply, the fish have no real reason to leave.

One of the problems that come with tournaments is that there is only so much bottom out there. Nothing in or around Bermuda is very big and things can get crowded pretty quickly if the fleet shows up, as it tends to do on tournament days. If the fish are on Challenger, then they are likely to be concentrated on one portion of the bank and having half a dozen or more boats working the area is a far cry from the situation in mid-week when only a few boats put in any effort at that location.

More boats does not usually equate to more fish. Actually, some anglers go out of their way to avoid competition and fish less popular areas. Historically speaking, winning fish have come from just about everywhere: off the East End, from down north and elsewhere on the Edge but the most consistent area remains the Banks. Expect to see that the preferred venue for most of tomorrow's participants.

At the present time, although traditional bait and lure trolling is eliciting strikes, the preferred way of catching wahoo at the moment is to fish live baits. This necessitates getting robins and that means chumming. In a perfect world, the bait of choice would be juvenile mackerel (frigates) or better yet, juvenile blackfin tuna which last longer. The problem is that there aren't any around.

The other belief is that live baits catch larger fish. The truth of the matter is that you can only catch what is around and if you happen to be fishing in the vicinity of a school of smaller fish, then that is all you are going to get. Given that a wahoo is a vicious predator with razor sharp teeth, even a small fish is capable of reducing a large bait to shreds in the twinkling of an eye. In this case, large baits do not necessarily make for larger predators. The real hope is that the larger fish get to the bait before the smaller ones and then it is a matter of having the hooks grab hold; something that can and often does go wrong!

Larger fish tend to be loners rather than schoolies, and often turn up in odd places like in the deep between the banks. This actually makes sense because if the fish start off in schools, they are usually of similar size as they grow up, they are subject to predation and other natural pressures.

As they get older (and hopefully larger), the numbers become reduced. That is why there are fewer big fish and smaller ones are more common. Older means fewer but probably bigger, and those are the ones that you want to catch in a tournament.

Another tactic that has produced in the past is a rigged flying fish trolled a long, long way back on an outrigger. Slow trolling a combination of dead, rigged baits and live offerings can pay off. The theory is that the live baits serve to attract the predators and once they show up, they will grab at pretty much anything as they compete with each other. This is often the case with multiple strikes. The fish suddenly switch into feeding mode and then it doesn't really matter if the bait is live or not.

One thing is for sure, tomorrow will see a variety of modus operandi employed with varying degrees of success. In the past, success has come from just about every alternative method from chumming to kite fishing. The key is largely a matter of luck: first finding a large enough fish, then enticing it to bite and then actually catching it. The main thing to remember is that this is a sport for most of us. Certainly using light line shifts the odds in favour of the fish and makes it all a bit more of a challenge, but the bottom line is the real object of this exercise is to have a good time.

While it is nice to win a tournament, it isn't everything as there can only be just so many winners. For most of us, things are a success if we have a bit of action and manage a few Tight lines!!!