How do you judge the success of a tournament? Is it the size of the fish? The success rate? The winners? The losers? The weather conditions? No matter which criteria you might want to use, it is pretty hard to call this year’s Royal Gazette Wahoo Tournament anything but a resounding success.

First off, there were 21 boats that weighed in. This out of a total of 46 registered. Amazing, as they represented something like 46 per cent of the participants. This is considerably better than the usual 25 to 30 per cent that weigh in at most events.

There were 53 fish weighed in, which, although not a record amount, was good by any standard and showed how the catch rate was pretty evenly distributed through the fleet.

The quality of the fish was nothing short of outstanding. People tend to forget that wahoo are not a BIG game fish. The average fish in most places is something less than 25lbs, with 30-pounders being noteworthy. They do get considerably larger, probably more than 200lbs, but these are incredibly rare and a 100-pounder grabs headlines.

Bermuda boasts one of the higher average weights at something between 30 and 40lbs when all the fish caught each year are averaged together. Summertime fish tend to be small with fish in the low teens commonplace and larger fish being the exceptions.

In this tournament there were no fish weighing less than 10lbs (wahoo sometimes cannot even weigh that much!) Overall, there was a nice class of fish and it looked like there really wasn’t anyone who wasn’t likely to feast on some fresh fish that weekend.

There were only 15 fish that weighed between 10 and 20lbs, with most in the upper third of that category. Nineteen specimens weighed between 20 and 30lbs. Another 11 fish went between 30 and 40lbs and an impressive eight fish weighed more than 40lbs. Of the latter group, many were very close together, making it a near-run thing between the overall winner and some of the line class winners.

The overall winning wahoo was a 45.8-pounder caught by Kyla Evans aboard Capt Andrew Dias’s Triple Play. No mean feat, either, as the catch was made on 12lb test and scored almost 1,500 points. Along with four other wahoo caught by Kyla on that line class, the total amassed by Triple Play was 4,071.93 points and won for it the High Point Boat award.

In the line class awards, the 12lb test prize went to Foxsea’s Jim West with a 45.7lb wahoo caught on that line test and showing just how close things really were.

The 16lb test line class went to Chris Duperreault, who fished aboard Larry Martin’s Ocean Mile.

Fishing aboard Capt Dean Jones’s Lone Star, Dean Souza’s 38.5lb wahoo took the 20lb test line class honours, while Edward Barnes’s 44.8-pounder on 30lb test line caught aboard Hoodini took that category, again highlighting the element of closeness.

In an equally closely fought High Point Wahoo Junior Angler category, the winner finally emerged, as Jacob Estis amassed 845.84 points with a 34.9lb wahoo caught on 12lb test aboard Capt Martin Estis’s Wasabi. Although not as large as Paige Martin’s 45-pounder that she caught on Capt Darius Martin’s Phuket, the line class (30lb test, in this case) worked against her, scoring only 225 points for the nice catch. With the junior category limited to 16-year-olds and younger, the stiffness of the competition means that there is a nice crop of promising anglers that will help to ensure the future of Bermuda angling.

A brief consideration of what might have been better would have to include the apparent lack of frigate mackerel. Things really break loose when there is an influx of this highly desirable bait by both anglers and predators. So far this year, and things are getting late, there have been no signs of the juvenile mackerel or small blackfin tuna.

On the other hand, there are enough larger blackfin tuna offshore to provide the occasional strike and there were a fair few reportedly caught by boats in pursuit of wahoo last Sunday. Not surprisingly, since this was a wahoo tournament, there were numerous catches that remained in coolers and below decks on boats that came to the weigh-in.

There have been some trophy yellowfin around and, although the numbers appear small, they are large enough to challenge even the heavier classes of tackle. In the week preceding, Capt Alan Card’s Challenger caught a single fish that dressed out at about 140lbs; and, during the tournament, another angler spent more than an hour on a yellowfin on 20lb test that eventually was lost close to the boat. That fish was estimated at 100lbs.

The abundance of floating seaweed, undoubtedly a result of the circulation of the Sargasso Sea, also brought in all sorts of flotsam. Some of this can prove hazardous to shipping, especially smaller craft, but they can also harbour a reward.

A reward that was happily reaped by several boats in the form of numbers of dolphinfish. Not exactly large fish, averaging in the 10 to 20lb range, some boats had as many as half a dozen to show for their trolling efforts. Never really as numerous here as elsewhere in their large range, at any size these fish are prized because they have few peers in the culinary department.

The right tackle, the sort employed by boats in last week’s wahoo tournament allowed them to show off their gladiatorial prowess as some of the weekend’s more welcome Tight Lines!!!