The forecast for last weekend pretty much ensured that the sporting fleet stayed ashore and left the fish to their own devices. Happily, Colin the wannabe 'cane did not amount to much and served as a nice little "dry" run in terms of storm preparedness. Doubtless, more than a few boaters realised that they were short of lines, or that the mooring needed checking or that there were other shortcomings that needed addressing before the real thing shows up, causing mayhem.

With the weather reverting to its usual August heat and the high pressure again starting to dominate, there will be any number of anglers looking for a way to take advantage of what could, arguably, be the height of the summer season.

Trolling has its adherents; there are both white and blue marlin patrolling the deep water. Both attack similar baits and lures and, if you want to increase the likelihood of a smaller fish attacking, downsize the lures. But remember that elephants eat peanuts and most marlin, even hefty blues, will take lures intended for wahoo or other smaller game species.

The wahoo fishing is in the doldrums. One of the best techniques during the month of August is to keep an eye open for flotsam (floating materials like bits of rope, cargo netting, etc.). Aggregations of junk often concentrate schools of wahoo and dolphin and, every so often, finding something floating can make for a real jackpot. It can help to carry a marker buoy that can be tossed overboard to mark a location because it is unbelievable how easy it is to totally lose sight of something floating just below the surface and never be able to find it again.

Tuna are another proposition. Chumming will lure blackfin tuna pretty consistently but the yellowfin are a bit harder to come by. For the most part they shy away from the heat of the day, so early and late are the best times for trying to get them up. Occasionally using a "pinch-on" sinker or other apparatus to take the bait down works but the fact of the matter is they they are in lesser than usual supply. A few larger fish have taken trolls, so it may pay off to keep an eye open for any signs of tuna crashing bait, even off the Banks where the fish may have balled up a school of bait.

The hot weather can make a day afloat quite uncomfortable, particularly if the wind drops out after a summer squall. It just turns steamy then and, with the fish likely to have sought cooler water down deeper, things can be downright boring. An interesting approach to this sort of situation is to concentrate the effort over the deeper reefs where there is a variety of species which are not usually deterred when the water is at its warmest. These include the bottom-dwelling coneys, barbers and hinds but the real targets at this time of the year should be the "floating fish" like bonitos and yellowtails.

The yellowtail snapper is an interesting fish in its own right. It has always lent itself to hook and line fisheries but it was also commonly caught in fish pots when such trapping was permitted. Much less likely but nonetheless important was the fact that the snappers would often school up and when they did, they became a matter of interest to the commercial net fisherman. That this could be significant is reflected in the Fisheries legislation which specifically allowed the use of haul nets to catch this species while most other species were excluded.

To put things into perspective, there hasn't been a school of yellowtails seen along the shoreline for quite some time; certainly there haven't been any large net hauls nor are fish pots in use in the sort of numbers that they were twenty years ago. As an aside, yes, it was back in 1990 that the pot ban went into effect and the oft-aired query "When will the fish come back" remains unanswered. In any event, this combination of circumstances suggests that there should be quite a few yellowtails out there and this should present even the casual angler with a golden opportunity for some fast action with a game species that also has few equals in the galley.

Chumming is the preferred method of fishing for yellowtails with the added specialization of combining the chum with sand and balling down in the hope of coaxing a school of yellowtails off the deeper reefs and up into the chumslick.

There is some disagreement with this method. While there is no doubt that it does work, there are plenty of boater owners who can't imagine anything worse than having sand get all over everywhere and into places where it will continue to show up for years on end, no matter how many times you wash down. Happily, plain old-fashioned chumming does work and while bottom-bouncing will catch yellowtails, the real deal is getting them to come up. A good leeward tide will get the job done and there are other advantages to be had as both amberjack and bonitos will often accompany the yellowtails right to the back of the boat.

Another interesting quirk that applies to yellowtails is that they will feed into the hours of darkness. As long as you keep the chum going they will stay and continue to please. In the past, some commercial fishermen have managed hauls of as much as 800 pounds of yellowtails in a single foray. When people specialised, it wasn't uncommon to catch upward of 50 fish with each one weighing between three and five pounds on average. That made for a pretty impressive haul with the only caveat being the requirement for lots of ice. Roughly put, you need a pound of ice to chill a pound of fish and another pound of ice to keep the pound of fish. Don't make the mistake of catching more fish than you can adequately chill. Yellowtails are notorious for spoiling and there is no sense to catching them just to waste them.

Looking ahead, the real season finale beckons. The ever popular wahoo tournament always draws a large entry and, for many, this is the one competitive tournament that they take part in every year.

Whether the main body of wahoo, or more optimistically, the frigate mackerel, will show up is anybody's guess but there is every reason to expect that this tourney will turn up its usual share of the season's excitement. After all, for many of us, it will be a final opportunity for us to have a shot at any of this year's Tight lines!!!