JUST to keep you on your toes, please note that it is only about 11 weeks to the opening of the 2009 game fishing season. And just because the Tourism Department cast that date in stone decades ago, it doesn't mean anything to the fish which might well start up peak activity sometime in advance. The message here is it pays to be prepared and to take advantage of whatever Mother Nature sends us. So far this winter we have been extraordinarily lucky with minimal disruptions due to gales and generally inclement weather. In fact, it is only in the last week or so that the weather has been decidedly wintry. There have been plenty of glorious days, many of which found the angling faithful on golf courses or involved in outdoor pursuits other than fishing.

Although the recent heavy weather has dispersed any real concentration of yellowfin tuna despite their having been there in good numbers just up to a little more than fortnight ago. The suspicion has to be that they are still in the general vicinity and a spell of good weather may well see them start to congregate in the spots that they usually favour.

When they were present, those going out to the Banks found that they would respond to good, old-fashioned chumming. Boats were catching anything up to a half-dozen without difficulty. The only down-side to this is that the fish were not particularly large with something like 20 pounds figuring in most descriptions. Still for the lucky few tourists who took the now rare winter charters, just being able to experience chumming, Bermuda-style, and actually hooking up to a yellowfin really had to be a bit of a bonus.

There are also some wahoo to be had and not all of these are small. There have been a couple of large fish in the 70-80 pound bracket and there is every likelihood of there being more of those out there. Using live baits is a good way of increasing your odds of catching a big one and this is something that can be combined with a mixture of chumming and bottom bouncing. Even on the Edge, while working over the coneys and barbers it should be possible to get a few robins up and to put one of these out in the hopes that a wahoo will happen along.

Another little newsy tidbit is that Capt. Keith Winter's Playmate caught a small white marlin recently. While this could be heralded as good news and the first billfish of the year, it really isn't that extraordinary. White marlin have been caught during the winter on enough occasions to validate the belief that they are out there but the fishing effort is what is left to be desired. Research by Japanese longliners back in their heyday of the 1960's indicated large concentrations of white marlin in this part of the Atlantic during the months of February and March.

Now, there are a couple of things that might be concluded from this. First off, the lack of trolling effort may account for why we don't see more whites caught during the winter. That is a simple and very acceptable explanation. The second reason might be that the fish are there but adopt a slightly different lifestyle. There is some evidence to suggest that rather than sight hunting in the surface waters, the fish may feed deeper and pretty much avoid coming to the surface. With trollers really only working the first ten metres (say, 30 feet) of the ocean, if the fish are down deep, then their paths are unlikely to cross. The fact that many of the fish being caught have obviously been feeding on shrimp-like organisms and other creatures also supports the idea that the fish are feeding deeper on things that we don't normally associate with the concept of bait. To the local offshore angler, "bait" means, flying-fish or flying squid. Maybe garfish and the odd mystery schools that pitter-patter on the surface count as "bait" too, but it ends about there.

Just for the record, blue marlin have been caught in every month of the year here, so do not dismiss the idea that someone might get a real surprise and have an encounter with one. Chances are that they tackle will be all wrong and the fish will get away leaving the angler with a fish tale that many will put down as a case of mistaken identity.

Moving away from billfish but sticking with this time of the year, there is another species that is prevalent in the local area during the height of winter. Again, this species is seldom seen by local commercial fishermen and even less often by anglers. This is partly because there is hardly any angling effort from December to April, that for a wide variety of reasons with the weather being just one of them. It is also partly because of the techniques used by the local fishing fleet. With a few notable exceptions, the fishing done here is traditional rod and reel fishing.

The species in question is the albacore, a valued member of the tuna family and the only one that can be called "white meat" tuna. In many places it is a highly regarded game fish and the few that are caught here have all given a good account of themselves.

The reason we know that they are here comes from the Taiwanese longline fleet that used to put in a good deal of effort in and around Bermuda. Although exploratory longline ventures have caught albacore on a pretty regular basis throughout the year, the real experts came here from November until March and really loaded up on albacore. Best of all, the fish were of good size, averaging 40 pounds or more. That is hefty for a fish that probably tops out at just over 100 pounds.

That the fish are here is a certainty, as is the fact that they are most numerous during the winter months. The two reasons we don't catch many is: first, we don't do much sport fishing in the winter; and, two, we don't fish the deeper layers of water that the albacore calls home. There are a limited number of local commercial fishermen who longline for swordfish and they catch albacore.

The real irony comes from the fact that almost everyone, including local fishermen, has a tin or two of albacore in their larders. Here we are probably surrounded by albacore and yet we go out of our way to buy tuna that is probably two years old by the time the tin can makes it here from Japan or elsewhere. That, in and of itself, makes a good case for us trying for some Tight lines!!!