OLD age and treachery come to mind when analysing the latest local tournament results. There are a number of strategic lessons to be learnt from last week's Bermuda Anglers International Light Tackle Tournament.

Weekenders and occasional fishers of tournaments will do well to take note - and to plan accordingly. To look at the situation a bit more closely, it was fairly obvious that by day three just about everyone had entered into a holding pattern.

Challenger Bank was providing a steady haul of small game fish with the blackfin tuna and Almaco jack dominating the pickings. All the boats were fishing Challenger and although catches varied from day to day and team to team, there was not really a whole lot in it.

Accepting the fact that the tactics being applies could result in a really hefty bonita or even a large amber, it was pretty much status quo throughout the fleet. Assuming relatively equivalent abilities between the various teams and it was unlikely that there would be any great discrepancy in the numbers of points scored by each team. The weigh-ins bore this out, although some good light tackle fishing was had and there were a few sad tales of the ones that got away the competition remained fairly close with no team or boat really looking any more dangerous than any other.

On the last day, it came down to Capt. Russell Young and his Sea Wolfe to break the pattern. Instead of returning to Challenger for more of the same, he took on a calculated risk and headed beyond Challenger to Argus Bank.

There he found what everyone else had been hoping for - a concentration of yellowfin tuna. Although many of the yellowfin were not much bigger than the blackfins being caught on Challenger, some were considerably heavier.

Apart from the larger fish, which ranged up to about 70 pounds, when dealing with light tackle even an extra pound or two can make the points clock right along. Thus their final day tally was sufficiently good to propel the Survivors team into first place and to account for the largest fish of the tournament.

Inasmuch as the weather forced a postponement of the Bacardi tournament last week, this information could well help to decide the game plan for many of the participants.

Those interested in the tuna prizes will have little option but to go in search of the Allisons. It is debatable whether or not they will appear anywhere on Challenger although they are likely to remain on Argus.

Basically, unless the fish have a good reason to move - bait or predators being good reasons - they will stay put. As yellowfin attain far larger sizes than the blackfin, it is a safe bet to say that a haul of yellowfin will see the largest tuna and probably something close to overall high point honours.

The wahoo situation is a bit different. Trolling effort is way off and while this might make for a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, there have not been too many wahoo caught this last week or so. The best bet for a larger than lizard wahoo is probably in the chum line. The trick here is to recognise the wahoo's presence before he has had a good feed and swallowed half a dozen of your best hooks. While you can get lucky and catch a wahoo on a monofilament leader, it helps to be prepared with either a short piece of wire or, if you are using less than 30-lb test gear, one of those prepared mono-coated stainless leaders. For some reason, wahoo frequently mistake the coating for mono line and ignore the steel bit and that has often proved fatal. Just remember to use a new one because the salt water does get between the plastic and wire and the wire often rusts, rots or whatever and will let you down at the worst possible time.

Leaving the smaller game aside for the moment the big news has to be one of the hottest marlin bites that this island has seen for some years. The blues seem to be just about everywhere and are appearing with regularity behind the plugs and baits being used over the deep water. To give you some idea of numbers, try this: Capt. Allen De Silva's DeMako had a dozen shots on the weekend! Some of these stayed attached and were duly released.

Capt. Alan Card returned to winning ways, catching and releasing three blues from six shots on Saturday. Capt. Russell Young's Sea Wolfe also got into the action with one release from two strikes.

The foreign sportfishing boats are also getting their fair share of the action, knocking up some good figures. The Grander and the Reel Tight, both with considerable international experience of some of the finest billfish waters in the world, are commenting favourably on the local billfishing scene, thus helping to focus the limelight on some top class action.

This augurs well in advance of next weeks Blue Marlin World Cup (4th July). With a bite this hot, there is good reason to expect that Bermuda could well figure in the winning. The only drawback so far would seem to be that there have been very few reports of large fish. One of the visiting boats did apparently raise a decent specimen and has since returned to the area but without seeing the candidate again. There are a couple of thoughts that come to mind. First off, locals are a mite spoilt. Here a 250-pounder is considered small. There are places in the world where that would be a nice fish and anything over about 350 is big. Here, big starts at about 700! There is plenty of reason to suspect that blue marlin congregate in local waters during the June/July period to spawn. The rule of thumb is that smaller fish are males and larger ones are females. So, if there are lots of small fish (presumably most of which are males), it stands to reason that they are not all barking up the wrong tree and there must be plenty of hefty females out there as well. While there may be some physiological reason why the females are less likely to feed while in reproductive mode, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that they can and will attack baits and lures. It is just a matter of time before a crew sees something full size stalking one of their teasers and then watch out. Between now and the next full moon which, happily, coincides with the Bermuda Big Game Classic, expect to see or hear about some huge marlin. No doubt about it, there will some very Tight lines!!!