Well, it looks like this year’s angling has come to an abrupt end. Whatever ideas Tropical Storm (and then some) Fay failed to knock out of people’s heads, the build-up to, and the subsequent fury of, Hurricane Gonzalo put them firmly to rest.

There was a mad rush to check on boats after Fay, followed ever so closely with calls to boat-trailering firms to get boats out of water and on to dry land. While plenty of boats stayed on their moorings and, thankfully, rode out the storm, not too many will be heading out to sea anytime soon.

The commercial fleet took full advantage of the first good days to head out to see if they could locate their lobster gear, which is more important than any lobsters that might have potted during the blow.

Perhaps surprisingly, it is more the black bottom or porgy hole areas that offer the greatest risk to trap haulers. There are ledges and holes that can totally destroy a trap and hopelessly entangle the ropes around various structures that make it impossible to recover.

The few commercial fishermen who concentrate on hook and lining have had mixed results. On the one hand the good news is that most of the seaweed is gone; not that that is surprising. This makes trolling easier, although the productivity still leaves something to be desired. A couple of full-day efforts managed to scrounge up something like four or five wahoo apiece with an odd dolphin providing the variety.

Somewhat disappointing is the size of the wahoo. Usually autumn and winter wahoo tend to be somewhat larger than their summertime counterparts but the pickings recently have not been anything to write home about.

A decent fish weighs about 30 pounds with some considerably smaller.

Perhaps it is the lack of bait, maybe in the form of small tuna or mackerel, that is keeping the wahoo from indulging in a feeding frenzy and rapidly putting on weight or maybe it is just a crop of average-sized fish that is in the local area. The best of what little fishing there has been this past week or so has come from the banks, although that is not to say that the edge may not be equally or even more productive.

Landside repairs, ground maintenance and any number of distractions will have put most sports fishing on hold, probably for the duration of the year. It may not seem like it; and time has really flown this last fortnight, but there isn’t even another week left in October. Halloween is on Friday and then it is November which also means that the clocks will change and the days will be obviously shorter.

So what to expect now that things have calmed down and sunny skies reappeared? Apart from the imminent onset of winter gales, that is.

Those can be expected with some degree of regularity over the next four or five months as cold fronts reach down from Canada and the polar regions to form large areas of depression that meander their away across the Atlantic, upsetting everything in their path.

They help to cool down the waters locally and while discouraging any sort of tropical or sub-tropical activity, provide enough mayhem of their own to keep would-be anglers and fishermen land bound, often for weeks at a time.

If you want to take a leaf out of what the old-time fishermen used to do, then here is the plan. From around October until after December, they concentrated almost exclusively on Challenger Bank, (using the name New Ledge, back in the day).

This was not because the fishing, primarily bottom fishing and fish potting, was better there than anywhere else but because this particular location was close enough to home that a mad dash could be made if a sudden gale made up.

Make no mistake, the winter side of the local maritime weather is not as predictable as the summer version. Gales can almost miraculously suddenly appear, blow hard, create messy seas and then almost as quickly disappear.

Assuming that all goes well, the best option is to run out to the bank and then to concentrate on bottom bouncing. Although the grouper population is nothing like it was even 20 years ago, it is possible to catch a collection of coneys and hinds with the occasional “floating” fish adding colour to the fish box.

The latter are likely to be amberjack or bonita, both of which are good game fish as well as being desirable “eating” species. Gwelly, a less commonly seen species, are also candidates and the prize has to be the very occasional monkey or flag rockfish.

There are also a few other fish likely to please, although they are usually the last thing anyone could want: the so-called “sling ding” or “slang dang” which is a sand tilefish or the blue wrasse that everyone calls a parrotfish. Even worse but happily less common is the spotted moray eel.

The southern and eastern sides of the bank tend to be the better spots because the northern section seems to be more of a muddy bottom with less structure and, therefore, less in the way of bottom-dwelling fish. Using circle hooks improves the catch rate and these are best used in threes, fours or fives.

More than that approaches a vertical longline and becomes unwieldy and the higher hooks are usually ignored by the fish being sought after. Fresh bait improves the hook-up rate but even good old standbys like squid or octopus should ensure some Tight Lines!