By Pickled OnionHere we are at the last holiday weekend of the summer. All flown by too quickly with the brunt of hurricane season yet to come followed by winter’s chill.For most anglers this is the swansong. The next couple of weekends and then put the boat into mothballs for yet another season. A good reason to take an expedition offshore, because it might well be next year before you get a chance to do it again.The newcomer to the tournament calendar, the 1st annual Bermuda Marlin Release Cup got off to a flying start last weekend. Twelve boats signed up but a late entry meant that there were thirteen boats setting off from a shotgun start to meet the challenges offered by what could best be described as below par conditions.It was Mojo, captained by Michael Batista, that got the first hookup but that turned out to be one got away. Then Nitin Aggarwal’s Samaki successfully caught and released a blue marlin about half an hour later. Capt. Ian Card’s Challenger also hooked up and subsequently released a blue marlin, keeping in contention. Wet Pleasure then hooked up but again the victor was the fish, making good its escape after just five minutes.Continuing to fish off the East End, which has been remarkably productive this year,, Capt. Card’s Challenger then hooked and released a second blue marlin which made them the overall tournament winners and the winner in the 31 to 42-foot boat class. The winner of the largest boat class (43’ plus) was Capt. David Soares’ Kerry D which released a large blue estimated at 850 pounds off the East End.This turnout and results augurs well for the future. This is a nice local tournament that allows anglers to sample the heady world of big game competition without having to dig deeply into their purses. All the organisers especially Trevor Gillis deserve a round of applause for coming up with something that is quite novel at a point in the season when many anglers simply lose interest. Great job, guys!Last weekend also saw the “Boy Scout Tournament”, actually called the US VI Open/Atlantic Blue Marlin Tournament, but nonetheless legendary in the Virgin Islands, fished down in St. Thomas. The winning boat Wave Paver, released a remarkable nine blue marlin during the course of the four day event. Second place went to a boat with seven releases while the third place finisher had six. That is a lot of blue marlin, by any standard!Now, that was them fishing the August moon which has to be their choice period of the year. The money involved and the famed nature of this event saw 28 boats taking part in this year’s event. Not really a lot of boats compared with what Bermuda sees in July but, then again, there is a lot of competition from the many tournaments up and down the US East Coast and through the Caribbean region during the month of August.But there were a lot of marlin. The 28 boats fishing four days released a total of 115 blue marlin. That works out at pretty much one fish per boat per day — impressive! And things might be a lot better than the numbers suggest because the rules only allow the use of 50-pound test line!Now, for some comparative statistics. Using what is probably peak season here and the reliable figures amassed by the three July billfish tournaments, an accurate assessment can be made. The Bermuda Triple Crown comprised of the Bermuda Blast, Big Game Classic and Sea Horse Billfish tournaments accounted for a total of 309 boat days (number of boats times number of days fished). The total catch, for the three events, was 167 billfish. That works out at an average of 0.54 billfish per boat per day.This means, using averages, that you have to fish two days to catch one billfish. There are, of course, no guarantees because some boats will go three days without catching a fish while others might manage to catch two or more in a single day. Averages are exactly that, averages.But averages are a good indicator and serve as a fair comparison between fishing locations. If you really want to get specific, the Bermuda figures, again based on the Bermuda Triple Crown, work out at 0.47 blue marlin per boat per day, not far off the overall figure but a very low .09 for white marlin.That latter figure is probably a bit skewed because some boats, notably certain local boats, do not really aim to catch whites. They use baits and lures a bit too large for the run-of-the-mill white marlin, preferring to go after the blues almost to the exclusion of white marlin.The comparison makes it pretty obvious that the Virgin Islands see a lot more marlin than Bermuda does. But is it fair to compare the two? Why not?Well, for one thing, there is quality and on that, Bermuda would seem to have the edge. The average size of the fish here is probably higher than in the Virgin Islands although with the tendency to release most fish at both locations, this becomes more of a subjective comparison.St. Thomas has produced granders and the world record has been held there in the past but there are not too many fish brought to the dock down there. Part of this is the trend toward conservation and, of course, the limitation on line test in some tournaments will make catching large fish more unlikely.When it comes to numbers, the VI have to get the nod. But even this can be qualified. They enjoy a lot more bottom there, much of it actually belonging to the British Virgin Islands. The island chain extends for hundreds of miles, up past places like Anegada to the east and all the way to Puerto Rico and beyond to the west.Throw in the fact that it is summer all year long down there with the warm waters that harbour marlin, and you simply have to catch more marlin than you can from this tiny, isolated Atlantic outpost that certainly gets cold enough to dissuade tropical pelagic species from sticking around in any sort of numbers.All this will be fairly moot as August comes to an end and the focus shifts almost solely on to wahoo. Thus far there have been a few signs that something is going to happen but the arrival of juvenile or “frigate”” mackerel is really what is needed to turn everything on.Not just the wahoo feed on these little bait fish, so do the tunas, barracuda, billfish and even dolphin. Bite-size morsels almost always get the attention of everything larger than them.Live mackerel are easily rigged in a variety of ways — just about every skipper has a preferred technique — but they all work. When this sort of live bait is around in large quantities it is pretty hard for even the most amateur of amateur anglers not to wind up with Tight lines!!!