THE former tournament champs from Bermuda got real busy this week and took over the huge lead set by anglers from the West Indies islands of Trinidad & Tobago, in the second day of the sixth annual Rolex/International Game Fish Association (IGFA) Offshore Championship Tournament (OCT) at Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Fishing on the Bermuda's Bobby Rego and Danny Fox along with Buddy Sowers from Richmond, Virginia, and John Domanic from Los Cabos, Mexico, caught and released a total of 10 striped marlin. An 11th marlin was disqualified for an offset hook.

With Monday's first round points from a marlin and a sailfish release, the 2003 Rolex/IGFA OCT champions lead with 3400 points; 900 points better than first day leaders representing the Tobago Gamefishing Tournament.

The Tobago team, which had eight billfish on Monday, released only one marlin on Tuesday.

David Wong, John Ming and Kenneth DeSilva, all of Trinidad and Tobago, along with Edgar Dapremont from Austin, Texas, now have a two-day total of 2500 points.

Rego said his team made all their catches by 10:30 in the morning, just three hours from the start of the second round.

"We ran out of live bait by then and could have done better catching more," said Rego. "Three times we had multiple hookups and our team coordination worked in our favour. We were at the right place at the right time and got real busy on the ," he said with a smile.

Wong on the other hand said they had only two chances with fish, releasing just the one at the boat. "We saw fish and were literally bumping their heads with the baits and lures trying to entice them with anything we had, but they weren't biting," said Wong. "We were at the wrong place at the wrong time and by the time we headed to northern fishing waters along the Baja coast, the bite was way off."

Moving up from ninth to third was the Islamorada, Florida, Presidential Sailfish Tournament team. They added to their three marlin releases in the first round with five more on Tuesday for 2400 points. Six more teams have 2100 points or better. In separate award categories the teams, the anglers and the boat captains are awarded 300 points for a qualified marlin release and 100 points for sailfish.

Twelve-year-old Martini Arostegui, Coral Gables, Florida, teamed with his father Martin and leads in the anglers race. He caught three marlin each day for 1800 points. He and his father represent the Miami Beach Rod and Reel Club Tournament.

Domanic of the Bermuda team is second with 1500 points. Five anglers are tied for third with 1200 points each. Leading among the local boat captains are Eric Orozco on the with 3039.50 points. Close behind are Jobe Villanueva on the (3,000 pts.) and Carlos Bibiesca (2400 pts.) on the . All three captains are from the Los Cabos area. Weight fish (wahoo, dorado and tuna) are awarded points per pound over 25 lbs. Local charities receive the weight fish caught from the waters of the Baja Peninsula along Mexico's Pacific coast.

A day one record 112 billfish released was overshadowed by Tuesday's 133 billfish releases. The tournament's four day record of 299 billfish could by broken after Wednesday's third round according to Sue Vermillion the tournament director The event has drawn the largest number of international teams ? 70 from 31 countries ? ever to compete in a single catch and release fishing tournament. The prestigious world championship has many of the best blue water anglers who have won one of 110 IGFA qualifying events held in 35 countries worldwide during 2004.

Teams are representing tournaments in the countries and territories of Angola, Australia, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, Kingdom of Tonga, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Senegal, Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, the United States, Venezuela and the Virgin Islands. The United States is represented by 22 teams of anglers from more than 22 states including Washington DC.