What is left of summer is rapidly dwindling away and with it goes the fishing season. Despite the blustery days, which are becoming more numerous, and the more frequent northerly winds that most of the world’s fishermen despise, there is still some respectable action to be had offshore.

For the most part this is coming from wahoo, both regular trolling and live baiting are producing, although it does seem strange that with the false albacore (mackerel) pretty much everywhere from the inshore to the offshore Banks, that these pelagic predators have not turned up in greater numbers. Maybe it is a timing thing and better is yet to come. Certainly, there is no shortage of bait species.

The tuna action has slowed up as might be expected for this time of the year when they lose interest in the chum and start on the move, making them susceptible to troll baits. Unfortunately, they are few enough in number that there is little yellowfin action.

Another possible explanation for the slower than expected fishing might be the result of decreased fishing effort. The August arrival of Hurricane Ernesto resulted in many locals taking their boats out of water earlier than usual and there seems to have been some reticence on putting them back overboard, so that removes some would-be anglers from the equation. Similarly, some of the more active commercial fishermen have been sidelined for various reasons while others have seen fit to concentrate on the lobster fishery which is now in full swing.

Once a boat is outfitted for the lobster trap fishery it is generally less suitable for the trolling or chumming fishing, which are the traditional means of catching wahoo and tuna. The focus of the crustacean fishery is also in locations removed from where one is likely to find wahoo or tuna, generally concentrating on shallower reef areas rather than the pelagic drop-offs.

Also largely ignored are amberjack and bonita, which come into their own during the late season. Sending a live robin down deep usually gets results from larger fish but there should also be schools of smaller fish of both species cruising over the deeper reefs and on the Banks. A great game fish, always welcome in the galley, these should not go unchallenged.

Some things often go unnoticed by even the best observers. One of these is the apparent disappearance of species that were once fairly common locally. There are explanations for some of these events, but other cases are not so clear cut.

In the case of the larger grouper species, it was simply overfishing, with the fish effectively becoming oddities by the 1990s when it was probably already too late for the fish-pot ban to save them.

Once a common component of the local catch, there is now an entire generation of Bermudians who have never seen the red rockfish in real life. Even the Aquarium, once a bastion for grouper identification, now houses precious few of these once common species. The same is true for most of the other groupers with the possible exception of the black rockfish, which is still a fairly regular catch.

Things have gotten so bad, in fact, that an angler catching such a fish is likely to end up killing it simply by trying to find out what he or she has caught. They are that thin on the ground, or more properly, in the sea. Those doubting this assertion might want to think back to the last time they saw a live hamlet or Nassau grouper, the proper name for the former. Experts think that there may be a few alive in the Great Sound and on scattered reefs but the fish was once a mainstay of the commercial fishery and regularly featured on menus and in home kitchens.

There are other species which did not bear the brunt of a heavy fishery but seemed to disappear anyway. One such species was the schoolmaster snapper. A rather pretty member of the snapper family, the species was regularly mentioned in publications listing Bermuda fish. It was not uncommon to see them inshore but since about the mid-1980s, there is nary a mention or sight of them. Further degradation to mangroves and their preferred habitat might have been the culprit but those areas were already pretty devastated by then, but the species was still around. Maybe it was dependent on recruitment from the Caribbean or Florida and the currents changed enough to keep them from coming here but, either way, the bottom line remains the same.

Another species is the goggle-eye jack. This is found in tropical seas and subtropical seas worldwide so has a vast distribution. In the old days, it used to occur in schools here and were sometimes caught by net fishermen. They are actually a scad and are similar in size and shape to an ocean robin but boast a really large eye, hence the common name. For a while, they were rarely seen, occasionally occurring in catches of bait like anchovy or herring. Now, reports seem to be more common but again, why the temporary apparent disappearance?

Just something else to mull over on those days when the winds make the offshore either uncomfortable or unsafe or both. After all, there have to be some alternatives to Tight Lines.