The Easter weekend saw a few trips out, with a late flurry of marlin activity when both Clueless and Unreel tagged a blue marlin on Thursday and Friday respectively, and the latter boat finding a couple of sailfish the previous day. The wind has now swung easterly and it is hot with gentle breezes, not the powerful south monsoon blowing yet, although there were a couple of welcome showers of rain, the first drops in four months!

The Banks now seems to be the best area, with a late run of wahoo, and Black Widow had a good day with eight of these fast running fish, as well as three dorado and a giant trevally, while B’s Nest had three wahoo, a dorado and a kingfish both these trips on Easter Monday, but since then the boats have been quiet. Earlier, both White Bear and Simba tagged a sailfish, and B’s Nest and Seastorm both had similar catches of a couple of wahoo, some dorado, tuna and a kingfish, and tagged a giant trevally, days typical of fishing the Banks at this time of year.

White Bear, with Sandy Evans fishing, tagged a sailfish estimated at 45kgs, a very big sail as not many this size are seen these days, the average sail being about 25kgs. It has been a very good year for sailfish, and of course far more would have been caught had the boats not being targeting marlin in the Rips from January to March, as the large scores of sailfish are usually in the Malindi/Mambrui area, or near the Boiling Pot, in shallower water.

The most notable feature of the season must be the run of big blue marlin in the Rips area, and often further out, where a score of fish in the 300kg range were caught, and while many are released there is still an understandable tendency to want to weigh in some of these monsters, as they are often the angler’s biggest ever, and maybe the skipper’s also. But it must be remembered that these huge fish are all females, the breeding stock for the future, and should all be released, as one female lays literally millions of eggs.

With Easter over earlier than some years, the coast goes very quiet touristwise, and the boating industry uses the idle time to overhaul the fleet ready for the new season starting around mid-July. Recent years have seen an good run of black marlin early in this month, and keen anglers push their favourite skippers in to making an early start to the season, despite the rough waters and windy weather at that time of year. So this will be the last article till some time in August and we will all hope for another good season to come.

The good fishing continued through the week with the Penn Challenge coming to a successful conclusion with the prize giving dinner at Sandies Hotel, Coconut Village in Malindi.

Top team were the Strike team of Iwan Raven and Jerry Vos with a black, a blue, and a striped marlin and nine sailfish in their four days fishing, while runners-up were the Tuna Boys team, Piet de Corte and Kees de Groot, which had a blue and a striped marlin and seven sailfish. The Wild Hookers, Gerrit Edelijn and Peter Held came third.

There were twenty boats in the tournament, not fifteen, confusion arising as some boats were weighing in at Malindi, with the rest at Watamu. Snowgoose, skippered by Alfred, was top boat, having had a marlin on each of the first three days and eight sailfish on the last day. Neptune with skipper Angus Paul was second and Rob Hellier’s Unreel third, for a total of fourteen blue, two black and ten striped marlin and 67 sailfish.

Prize for the heaviest fish, a blue marlin of almost 550lbs, went to the Penn Force1 team, Richard and Sjaak Pronk. This tournament is run annually by the Fishing Dutchmen Foundation, which helps local charities and orphanages, and they plan a bigger tournament here next year after such a successful one.

White Mischief made history here last year with the first broadbill caught in daylight by the long drop method. The same team have been trying again, and this time it was Jodie Thomas who caught and released a 50kg swordfish, her first! That they had a strike with every drop was encouraging, as these fish are hooked over 500 metres deep, so there is all that line out to recover when one starts! Unreel also was trying the method, and Mark Jury was successful in catching one of 100kgs - broadbill swordfish are thought to be the strongest fighters of all the fishes.

Another successful young angler was Mansur Khan fishing on his dad Nas’s new boat Whatever it Takes, who released a fine blue marlin estimated at 180kgs - good to see the release ethic in the young, as far too many big fish have been killed recently.

Fishing went quiet in the Pemba Channel, then improved with Broadbill and Kamara II finding good water conditions and after a strike from a 400lb blue marlin on the latter which jumped athletically for the camera before breaking the line, Tyler Hicks on Broadbill released a 90kg blue. Pete Smith and Alex Rostocil on Kamara II then contended with a treble strike from stripeys, hooking up on two, with the former bringing a fish about 75kgs to the boat, and the latter one of 65kgs on 15kg line, tagging both successfully. Pete then added another stripey to the tally for a very memorable day. Next day White Otter was out and caught a stripey so the fish are around again.

This year has seen a very good run of marlin in the Rips, and although fish may not have been as plentiful as in some of the best previous years, there have been more big ones than usual, satisfying for keen anglers.

The day after the successful Friends of Kenya Tournament ended, Alleycat weighed in a blue marlin of 286.5kg for Tom Cunningham, his third big fish on his holiday, while Instedda had a black marlin of 160kgs with angler Marco Soldini and Tega an excellent day with two blue and one striped marlin. The same day both Unreel and White Dove had striped marlin, and the following day saw White Bear with a blue marlin and two sail, and both Tega and Kipapa with striped marlin, so no respite in the fishing.

On Saturday, Seastorm was the leading boat with a blue marlin estimated at 150kgs and two striped marlin and a sail, all released, a grand slam for anglers Andries Nicolaas and Larry Stals, while Alleycat had a stripey and four sail, Seahorse had a stripey and Tega continued their good run with a black marlin.

Instedda released a bullshark of about 150kgs to make a change from all the marlin on Sunday, and Tarka had a black marlin of 150kgs, and another smaller one as well as a striped marlin and four other boats came in with stripey flags, amazing fishing indeed.

Sand Dollar caught a blue marlin of 156kgs, which was hooked in the gills and dead at the boat, but the overseas angler was thrilled to take a mass of pictures to show his friends when he leaves, and boost the fishing in Kenya. The same day Tarka weighed a black marlin of 132kgs, and this was the first day of the annual Penn Challenge, which features fifteen teams of anglers from Holland fishing for four days, with an off day on Wednesday.

Monday was a quieter day for the Penn boats, with a stripey for angler Jan Tomassen in Ol Jogi and three sail on White Bear, but the next day saw fantastic fishing with no less than ten of the tournament boats coming home with marlin flags! Little Toot angler Richard Jack tagged a blue marlin of 160kgs, with Jan Thomassen again lucky with a blue marlin of 150kgs on Tega, while Seastorm had a blue estimated at 145kgs as well as two sail and B’s Nest weighed a black marlin of 145kgs for angler Kebs de Groot. Unreel flew both a blue and a striped marlin flag, Neptune had a stripey and three sail and the other boats had either a stripey or a blue as well as sailfish - while Clueless and Tarka, not in the tournament also had blue marlin so a dozen boats with marlin in a day - incredible fishing!

With two days left of the Penn tournament it looks as if this amazing fishing should continue.

There was exciting fishing in both tournaments, the Watamu SFC International at the weekend and the Hemingways ‘Friends of Kenya’ which followed a couple of days later.

Mid - February on and into the first few weeks of March have always been the best time for big marlin, both blues and blacks, all along the coast although blue marlin do not appear every year, but this year looks to be one of those bumper years with boats reporting big blues being caught both around and outside the Rips off Watamu/Kilifi and at Shimoni.

The Mnarani Fishing Club at Kilifi held their annual International Classic tournament over the two days of last weekend, and Clueless with angler Paul Dawson on the rod clinched a win with a fine blue marlin of 151.8 kgs caught on the Sunday to add to three sail to give his team with David Ogden a 25 point lead over the second placed team of Adam Ogden, Batian Craig and Charlie Strachan on Black Widow. This team tagged eight sailfish, and third place went to the Seahorse team of Gina Faber, Malise Graham and Rene Faber with Malise tagging a striped marlin and the others each catching a sailfish.

Fourth team was Andrew Buckoke on Matamu who weighed a black marlin of 135.4kgs, as well as tagging a sail, and Sarah Penfold who tagged a sail.

The points system of scoring varies in different tournaments, with the score for tagged sailfish against marlin being a controversial subject on which anglers argue - at Kilifi it takes five sail to equal one marlin all released, while at Watamu for example it needs over nine sailfish to equal the score for a marlin. Another interesting mark is the weight given for a released fish, with sail usually given as 40kgs and marlin as 150kgs - most marlin caught are well under this figure, while it is very rare to catch a 40kg sailfish. If a fish under these weights is weighed in, then an angler loses points, but if a fish comes dead to the boat it is unethical to ‘release’ it!

Last Wednesday saw five marlin flags at Watamu, with Clueless continuing her good run with two blues released, estimated at 150 and 230 kgs, while Alleycat released a nice blue for Tom Cunningham who also had another big fish over 240 kgs earlier in the week to add to the 278kg blue a week ago. Kipapa which is usually based at Mtwapa, is also fishing from Watamu now, and angler Ben Goodingham from England released a fine blue marlin estimated at 175kgs - the previous day with fishing partner Steve Wright they had released two sailfish and missed several other strikes.

Most of these big fish are being hooked far out beyond the usual areas of the Rips, up to thirty miles offshore, and there are sailfish out there too, so one never knows what will strike next - perhaps it will be that grander blue, over a thousand pounds (453kgs), which bodes well for the Standard Chartered sponsored Watamu SFC tournament to be held this weekend.

Strange weather, overcast with strong winds,upset the fishing in the Rips earlier but this has eased now and boats are returning with good catches, more sailfish than marlin but this is only to be expected - the marlin does not have it’s reputation as the top billfish without good reason.

The Billfish University competition at Hemingways came to a successful conclusion, with many boats searching for marlin in the Rips rather than the sailfish in Malindi waters that had dominated the fishing the previous ten days. Little Toot, Simba and White Bear all had a black marlin as well as sail, while the latter boat and Jasiri found striped marlin.

Seastorm had a second consecutive day with both a black and a striped marlin, this time with Geoffrey Gross and Alan Taylor on the rods, and continued their good run with a stripey and a sail a couple of days later, then a black marlin estimated at 160kgs as well as three sail for Roland Norton. Naz Khan in his new boat ‘What it Takes’ started well with a black marlin and two sail, the first of many we hope!

Billy Lynch, from Nairobi, was out fishing for sailfish in Ol Jogi on his fly tackle and achieved a notable mile post when he tagged his one hundredth sailfish on this tackle, all caught under the stringent IGFA rules of this sport, Catching sail is difficult normally, but under fly tackle rules it is ten times more difficult - a great sporting effort!

The weigh scale at Ocean Sports had an interesting pile of fish caught from Tarka by a team of South African anglers using deep jigging tackle, where the heavy lead jigs are lowered to the bottom in perhaps 600 feet of water and the lures jigged swiftly up and down. This is a recent but popular method of fishing off the bottom for those deep dwellers, and amongst the variety of species they had large grouper, different species of red snapper, amberjack and interestingly, a black snoek, with it’s thin black body and huge sinister eyes - not many of these have been caught here although they are not uncommon off South Africa.

Other good catches have been on Clueless with a stripey and seven sail, White Dove with a black marlin and a stripey, Alleycat with a black and five sail and Seahorse with a stripey and six sail.

Malindi boats have had similar catches, indeed some of them fishing out of Watamu fish the Rips regularly for marlin. Snowgoose, close to Malindi on a short day had fourteen sail one day, with Neptune finding eleven, while Tina which tried the Rips had a nice stripey and a sail for David Wilson. The Malindi International Billfish tournament will be fished on Saturday/Sunday Feb 18th and 19th, with the light line Morson Cup on the previous day, and tournaments follow weekly at Kilifi and Watamu after that.

The Delamere Trophy was fished last weekend at Kilifi, with only one marlin being caught, but this black marlin, tagged by Snoo Colvile fishing on Tarka, won her the Lady’s Prize as well as biggest fish and the overall first place for her team with Ian and Maree Long who added four sailfish for 2160 points.

Second place went to the team on Seahorse Benjie Bowles, Jonny Havelock and Stuart Allison with five sail tagged for 1200 pts, while third were Andrew Buckoke, Erik van Vliet and Phil Revett on Clueless with three sailfish and a wahoo. Eleven boats totalled a marlin and twenty sailfish, and the Baloo team were unlucky to miss out on second place as they caught a striped marlin the second day but were time-barred. Thanks to Snoo Colvile who sponsors the competition, and congratulations to her on winning.

The SADSAS Inter-Provincial Tournament fishing out from Hemingways at Watamu continued to find the sailfish responsive for the last two days - on the Friday 51 sail were caught, with a further 44 on the Saturday to make an imposing total of 178 sail tagged in four days for the ten teams. Leading team was the Zululand blue team, with 28 sailfish for Louis de Fortfer, Robin Vermak and Ezri Ihlenveldt, followed by the Mpumalanga white team with 26 sail and the Mpumalanga blue team with 25 sail.

Top scoring boat was Tega, skippered by Steve George with an impressive 32 sail, with Ken Rodwell’s Delta and B’s Nest skippered by Mohomed Fadhili equal with 29 sail each. The best daily score was on Ol Jogi with the Zululand blue team catching thirteen sail, while Delta had a day with twelve sail and Tega eleven, so good sailfishing by any standard and much enjoyed by all the visitors.

In the Pemba Channel marlin have turned on, with Simon Hemphill reporting that he tagged five striped marlin last Monday with Ken Dodgson and John Levick from Cornwall fishing on Kamara II - in three days so far this team has had seventeen sail as well as the stripeys so good fishing there, On two days the previous week the same boat had been attached to three big marlin which had all come off so they are around.

Although the fishing in the Rips has slowed, Seastorm, with skipper Steve Webb, showed that the fish are there with a black and a striped marlin, the former estimated at 220kgs for Joerg Arend and the latter caught by Karin Arend, which with a couple of sail makes for an exceptional day’s fishing.

Hemingways continues this week with ten teams fishing the Billfish University competition, where one both fishes and learns, and with Black Widow coming home with twelve sail flags the fish are still active off Malindi.

Eight teams of anglers from the South African Deep Sea Angling Society, SADSAS, are competing in their Inter-Provincial Championships fishing out of Hemingways this week, and as their main target is sailfish, they were fortunate to find that the ‘sailies’ have really turned on and appeared in large numbers in the area off Malindi and the Leopard Reef, so not a long run from base to find the fish.

With 31 sail tagged the first day and 52 the second day the trend seems upward, so lets hope for the sort of catches which characterised this tournament a few years ago. The anglers use 10kg breaking strain line, far more fun for these sporting aerial performers than the heavier lines often used. After two days, with the anglers fishing on a different boat each day, the South Gauteng maroon team were leading with fifteen sail, despite an amazing day for the team on Ol Jogi on the second day with thirteen sail, but with only one fish on their first day they lag just behind the leaders - results next week.

The weather seems affected by the cyclone near Mozambique, with very strong winds some nights blowing green water down to the Rips and making the fishing difficult. Marlin were being caught earlier, with blue marlin on Tarka, a 190kg fish being the best last week, but this was followed by a 136kg blue two days later, and both Seahorse and Alleycat also had a blue marlin with some sail. Unreel and Billfish both had black marlin, while several boats found a striped marlin, so quite a variety of billfish around, but later in the week the Watamu boats found plenty of sailfish in deep water out from Wesa, between Watamu and Kilifi, with some good scores, so skippers had several options where to fish.

When the sail are running closer in, many anglers are happy to keep after the sail all day, but at this time of the season, many anglers prefer to chase after marlin, so the boats results depend on where they are fishing - the marlin generally being further out in the Rips where there are sail as well.

Con Jooste is a regular angler from South Africa who specialises in fly tackle, and two years ago made history with a grand slam, three different billfish in the day, on fly - he reached a milestone this week on Eclare with his one hundredth sailfish on fly. The previous day he had a striped marlin on fly as well. so well done to him!

Regular visitors Herbert and Monica Lewald on Snowgoose had an exceptional day when they had a black and two striped marlin, plus six sailfish for a grand slam. Neptune also had two marlin, a black and a blue, and a few days later they scored sixteen sailfish, so all the boats doing well.

Fishing hit the jackpot at the annual Casino Malindi Billfish Open Challenge when fifteen boats scored a total of 26 marlin and 65 sailfish, and in a thrilling finish, only one point separated the two top teams.

Overall winner was the team on Unreel, with skipper Rob Hellier, his wife Sandra and Vic Hawla tagging four marlin and five sail, both Sandra and Vic catching their first marlin ever. They had a brilliant first day, with two black and one striped marlin and two sailfish for a grand slam, and added a striped marlin and three sail on the second day, giving them 36007 points.

Tarka fished by Callum Looman and Phil Rivett, had two stripeys and two sail the first day and two stripies and three sail the second, to come in just one point behind the winners. Callum took the Top Angler prize and Sandra was Top Lady.

Third place went to the team on Ol Jogi, skippered by Stuart Simpson with Alister and Royjan Taylor, while Alleycat , with three marlin and four sail was fourth and Snark fifth. Prizes were awarded at an excellent dinner at the La Grigia restaurant for a most successful tournament.

This tournament came at the right time as the fishing has been really good over the last week with catches varying from grand slams to ten sailfish - the sailfish are all over the place and it seems just a matter of luck if one raises sail or marlin. Neptune, with Richard and Nick Steadman from Australia fishing, tagged a blue marlin estimated at 100kgs and five sail one day, then followed this next day with a grand slam, both a black and a striped marlin and four sail for a good story to tell back home. Tina, with a party from Austria aboard, also had a grand slam, with a black and two striped marlin and three sailfish, while the same day Snowgoose with two Danish anglers on the rods also had a grand slam - their black marlin died on the bottom and had to be slowly planed up to weigh in at 206kgs - all these catches on Friday 13th, so much for superstition !

Hemingways boat Seastorm recorded a grand slam for anglers Ben Hattingh and Jacques du Preez, with a blue marlin estimated at 200kgs, a stripey and two sail, while the same boat found a stripey and three sail the previous day, a good run for skipper Steve Webb. White Bear with ten and Black Widow with nine sailfish ran red flags all down the outrigger, while earlier the latter boat with skipper Adam Ogden tagged two black marlin and eight sail for anglers Terry and George Creasy. Kipapa, up from Mtwapa, started well with two black marlin and a sail, while Seahorse from Malindi, but which is based at Watamu at this time of year, has also had good days with striped marlin and a couple of six sailfish days, so really a plethora of billfish!

While some marlin were seen around the New Year period, they have definitely increased as the month has moved on, and there have been plenty of sailfish all along, both in the Rips and off Malindi up north and in the Pemba Channel at Shimoni in the south.

The Shimoni boats have been busy, with both Kamara II and White Otter scoring a striped marlin and a sailfish at the beginning of the week, and Broadbill and Clueless, down from Malindi, both tagging four sail.

Next day, Broadbill had a memorable day with a party of Russian anglers, getting a black and a striped marlin, as well as two sail, for a grand slam, while Clueless had five sail and White Otter two. The following day, Broadbill had another stripey, while Kamara II found four sail, but the day after no marlin were caught, only sailfish.

Broadbill then caught two stripies and Kamara II a blue marlin, following up the day after with a nice blue marlin of 140kgs and five sail for Kamara II and one stripey and a sail for White Otter, so the fishing in that area really good.

In the Watamu area the boats have been concentrating on the Rips, although tongues of green water have been moving down with the wind and the fish have been moving around. At the beginning of the week, B’s Nest found a hot spot and tagged two stripies, a sail and a small shark, but many boats found the going slow and went for the bottom fishing option.

White Bear with the Kenyon family caught 26 snapper and five grouper, while on Ol Jogi the Bairstow family found 36 snapper, together with a couple of amberjack and two grouper, while next day Black Widow with Chris Evans as angler found sailfish and tagged seven.

Unreel had a good run in the first few days of the New Year with three stripeys in three trips, then Tarka became the hot boat, totalling nine stripeys in five consecutive days, including a good day with three - that same day, Tuesday, Castle Lager also had three stripeys, and Tega caught a black marlin and five sail so a busy day for anglers there. Castle Lager had two stripeys a couple of days later, while Alleycat has been finding stripies along with sailfish for a successful week. Clueless came back from Shimoni and tagged a stripey and a sail, while Kipapa also came up to Watamu from Mtwapa via the Rips and tagged three sail on the way.

Malindi boats have been fishing in their local waters most successfully for sailfish, although things went quieter over the New Year, but Kiki Fernandes managed to tag two sail on fly tackle on Snowgoose. On Friday last week the sail were more active, with Snark and Snowgoose getting eight and Eclare five.

The Casino Malindi tournament will be fished this weekend, and skippers will have the choice of sail closer in and the chance of striped marlin further out, so there should be plenty of billfish caught.

The Watamu SFC Xmas tournament finished the second day with some surprises, when the tiny 18ft private boat Magoo, fished by Joss Taylor, Phil and Ross Valentine and Mr Pellizoli, tagged a black marlin, and once their points had been divided by the length of the boat as this competition rules, they jumped into second place overall, as well as winning the small boat section. A very commendable performance - good to see that small boats can challenge the large professional boats and a great encouragement for more private boats to enter these competitions - well done to them.

Seahorse, fished by Craig Griffiths, Brett Ayton and Peter Ready retained their lead from the first day with two striped marlin and three sail, to win the main prizes, while another small boat, Spoit, with Marcus and Russell Keane and the Ballards came in third place overall with a stripey and a sail, also taking second place in the small boat section. Neptune, fished by Ritchie Moller, Ryan Taylor and Angus Paul was fourth, with a stripey and seven sail, while the crew on Black Widow, with Adam Ogden and Ali al Hirazi added a stripey and a sail to their first day score to take fifth place overall.

Best Junior Angler was awarded to Barney Engel who went out alone on the first day when all his mates were ill and caught two sailfish, while Best Lady went to Jade Parkinson who caught the first sail recorded. Twenty-four boats, with thirteen marlin and fifty-six sail, and 106 anglers made for a great tournament, thanks to Capt. Andy’s for sponsorship and great prizes.

The Mnarani SFC competition at Kilifi on 27th Dec saw a black marlin and thirty-one sailfish caught by fourteen boats, with Tarka, fished by Sophie and JC Durand and Mangi, coming in first overall with seven sailfish, a yellowfin and a wahoo, which gave them the Graham Cup and a wide range of prizes. Centa, with a black marlin and a sailfish came first in the professional stream, fished by Andrea Walker, who caught the black marlin giving her the Lady’s Prize, and young Max Donner aged eleven with the sailfish. Shika Shangwe, fished by Kevin and Jonty Marsh, Edward Barthorp and Phillip Lowe was leading the small boat section, and a good range of prizes went to the various young angler categories, as this is always a family orientated competition.

Catch of the week must go to Chris Hemphill, who out with his dad Simon on Kamara II last Monday, tagged a magnificent blue marlin on 24kg line which was reliably estimated at well over 600 lbs, 273 kgs. The fish fought hard and was eventually leadered to the boat after three and a quarter hours. Girlfriend Leanne had tagged her first marlin, a stripey, earlier in the day, and with two sail as well a grand slam for the day, a great way to start the new year!

Fishing has been good recently in the Watamu area, with sailfish active most days and marlin being caught in the Rips now, so it was nice to see a great start to the Watamu SFC Xmas tournament, sponsored by Captain Andy’s Fishing Supplies.

The first day ended with the Seahorse team of anglers, Ayton, Griffiths and veteran skipper Peter Ready well in the lead with two marlin and three sail, ahead of the Tamu team with Geoff Bell, while Neptune fished by Moller, Taylor and Angus Paul with a marlin and four sail were close behind. The Parkinson family on Blue Eyes also had a marlin with three sail, so it is that extra marlin which is the decisive factor so far, and with both Black Widow with a striped marlin early on the morning of the second day to add to her five sail the first day and Unreel with another stripey so far it could go anyone’s way. These are all big boats, but we must remember that smaller boats have a bonus with their catches divided by their length, although these have been unlucky in the marlin stakes so far! Results next week.

It has been curious how the sailfish have been active for two or three days, then quiet for a couple of days. On Boxing day, the boats were scoring one or two sail while the next day boats were catching seven or eight with Tega top scoring with eleven, and they had time to catch a couple of giant trevally as well. This was the day before the competition, and while sometimes one tends to use up one’s supply of luck on the day before a competition starts it was not that way with Seahorse, which had eight sail that day so obviously they are on a hot streak!

Earlier Greg Brackenridge on Ol Jogi tagged a nice blue marlin estimated at 130kgs, one of the biggest fish recently, while Mark Bird and Nick Thomson on Seastorm did well with a striped marlin and four sail. Some days later the same anglers had three sail, this time on fly tackle and Mark Allen in his Simba took time off from driving the boat to tag two sail on fly. White Mischief, Furio II and Alleycat also all found a striped marlin, so it looks as if the fishing in the Rips is off to a good start as the main season for marlin begins.

The Casino Malindi tournament is due on the 15th and 16th January, and with a good range of top line tackle, rods and reels, as prizes this should prove popular, particularly with the billfish running well with the Rips within easy range of Malindi - a good excuse to extend one’s New Year holiday at the Coast.

The Christmas holidays are in full swing now as the upcountry holiday makers arrive to fill every bed along the coast, many of them with boats towed behind their cars determined to have fun on the ocean.

The clubs too arrange competitions for all, most with an emphasis on the smaller boats, and the Mtwapa Open Boat/ Christmas Hamper competition which was fished out from the La Marina restaurant last Sunday saw thirteen boats battling for the goodies, with Taru, fished by Phil Gschwend, Max Donner (junior) and James Davies the winners. Second was Wim Vandecruys in Sea Lord and third prize went to Minerva, fished by John Caverner and Eric van Vliet. Eleven sailfish were released and some good mixed bags caught, with the best non-billfish being a barracuda caught by Eric van Vliet, and the best junior was Nabil with a sailfish, a fun day for all.

The sailfish bonanza around the Boiling Pot area lasted a few days before conditions changed and the daily bags dropped off, but while it lasted there was some amazing fishing. Snowgoose from Malindi had twenty-eight sail one day, and Neptune had eighteen before things went quieter, but there was also good action on the Rips where Eclare with regulars Bernd and Marc Neufeldt tagged a 50kg striped marlin and a couple of sailfish one day, and a black marlin of 90kgs the next day, with another striped marlin a few days later.

Earlier the previous week, Neptune did a trip to the North Kenya Banks and ended up with the first grand slam of the season, a blue and a striped marlin and two sailfish for Martin Joswig and friends.

Watamu boats enjoyed the activity at the Boiling Pot, with many getting double figure scores and despite the quieter period it seemed to have revived when Tarka came back with fifteen sail flags last Tuesday and Tega with half a dozen also had a good day, so it would appear the fish are still there but what turns them on and off again seems to be a mystery to the skippers, although the weather, with thunderstorms around some days, must play it’s part.

Unreel and Alleycat both found black marlin in the Rips as well as sail, and White Mischief was in the action with a stripey for Danny Thomas, while Ali al Harazi on Instedda also tagged a black marlin as a change from his captaincy duties. Ol Jogi has had a good run, with two stripeys one day for the Widd and Rothmann families after nine sail the day previous, and followed this with four sail for George and son Jack Shaw and a striped marlin for them two days later so good fishing here from the Rips.

Simon Hemphill at Shimoni had a family trip with his dad Pat, and they tagged six sail - a couple of days before Pat in Broadbill had found a nice stripey of about 70kgs for client angler Robert Harburger, his first marlin while his son Nathan caught a sailfish, so the fishing seems great everywhere.

Sailfish usually arrive in Malindi waters early in November, and this year the season has been disappointing, with the fish hard to find around Malindi and north, while unusually there have been quite a few sail raised in the Boiling Pot area, nine miles east from Watamu, with boats catching three to four on a good day. But this changed dramatically last week suddenly one day, when presumably a new run of these fish arrived in large numbers and hungry, rising to the baits and taking them avidly.

Last Monday, Imran Moosa and friends, tagged nine sail on their holiday weekend sortie in his boat Instedda and Seastorm six with Kim Roberts and Toni Hill, but it was to get better when Adam Ogden in his Black Widow with his crewmen Nixon, Adam and Gitsao fishing tagged thirteen sail, and returning next day to the same area with angler Gavin Lawrence, they experienced one of those days that fishermen dream of - with sailfish coming up everywhere all day, thirty sail were caught, one of those amazing days with luck on one’s side and when everything goes right. All these sail were tagged and released, and with numbers like this it will be interesting to see how many of these tags are caught again and reported.

Good news also from the Rips, an area further out, as all three species of marlin have been caught in recent days. Unreel found a striped marlin on two different days and Tarka caught a black and three sail one day, and a stripey the previous day, so skippers have the option of lots of sail, or the chance at a marlin, and it is great to see the fishing improving as the Xmas holidays approach.

December 28th and 29th are the dates for the Watamu Xmas tournament, always one of the season’s most popular competitions with magnificent prizes from sponsors Capt Andy’s, while on Sunday 18th Ocean Sports will host their annual Christmas Craft Fair, where KASA will have a stall so come and support your angling association.

From Shimoni comes news of improved fishing with the kaskazi winds blowing firmly, with regular angler Koos Pretorius from South Africa who tagged three sail on Kamara II as well as raising a big black marlin estimated at 250kgs, which rose to two lures without a positive strike. Next day on Broadbill Koos tagged a sail and a very active striped marlin on the way home. James Nutter from Mombasa, out in Broadbill, hooked into a beauty of a black marlin on 24kg line which was released after a most exciting fight, estimated at 200 kgs. With the wind blowing nicely, this is one of the best periods of the year in this exciting fishing area.

The annual change in the monsoon wind is later than usual this year, and while the wind swung into the north-east for a few days it then went back south, with the resulting effect of turning the fish off. However for the past three days the wind reverted north, and with a couple of days of strong kaskazi breezes the improvement in the fishing was immediate.

At Watamu after several days when hardly any sailfish were caught and the boats were resorting to fishing for giant trevally deep on the downriggers, or bottom fishing for snapper and grouper in the depths, suddenly the boats were coming in with red flags again, and this Wednesday Tarka, with four sailfish, Castle Lager with three and most of the boats out finding at least one sail, the fishing was definitely looking much brighter. On previous days Alleycat , Simba and Seastorm all had a pair of sail, while Tarka weighed a huge sailfish of 48kgs, which is about as large as one sees them these days.

A week earlier there had been a flurry of marlin activity, with White Bear weighing a big black marlin of 139.5kgs which would have been much heavier had the fish not been savaged by a shark which took a huge bite out of it’s belly, killing the marlin which would otherwise have been released! B’s Nest tagged a blue marlin, estimated at 110kgs, for angler Anton Westers, while Barry Swanehelder released a black marlin on White Bear and earlier still, Contagious had a stripey and Unreel a black marlin.

Up at Malindi the boats have been busier with regular anglers starting to arrive, and Peter Hofmann had a couple of sail on Seahorse. Clueless did a safari out to the the North Kenya banks with Eric, Judith and Robert Duff and were rewarded with a pair of striped marlin and a good mixed bag of other fish.

The Kingfisher fleet has been active, Snark having an exciting day with Dimitri Sosin and his father-in-law, tagging three sailfish and boat four yellowfin tuna and some bait fish.They also fought a black marlin on 15kg line which gave them a good fight before the line broke when the fish was close to the boat.

Con Jooste from South Africa has been out on Eclare and tagged a sailfish on his fly rod and had shots at a couple of others which did not take, but most thrilling was to follow when they saw a very big black marlin of about 250kgs chasing a dorado right into the spread of teasers. The huge fish caught the dorado then proceeded to attack the teasers, but wisely Con decided not to throw his fly at the monster, far too big for his tackle!

Earlier Neptune with anglers Marcel Aalbregt and Ari Terlouw went after giant trevally when the wind had sent the sailfish quiet and had a hard workout with four fish, the biggest estimated at 35kgs while the fish were all tagged and released.

The wind swung into the north for the last few days of the Capt Morgan Rum tournament at Hemingways, Watamu, resulting in an immediate improvement in the fishing with thirty sail and a couple of marlin tagged and released on the final three days.

Gilly Roberts, who tagged a blue marlin on Ol Jogi on the Wednesday also caught two sailfish on Tarka on Thursday so with an earlier sail she totalled 1400 points to take the Individual Prize, with Rob Roberts close behind with 1100 pts from his striped marlin on Jasiri plus a sail. The winning team of Mike and Gilly Roberts, Sean Bushney and Lindsay Austin scored 2900 pts in all, with Sean in the fourth spot in the Individual list - an impressive lead over the second team of Johan and Arulene Small, and Chris and Marie van Rensburg, with 2300 pts where Arulene was the strongest performer with a striped marlin on Seastorm and a sail on Ol Jogi on the last day, which also put her in third overall in the Individual ratings.

Third in the team ratings were Bobby Graham, Tim Widdecombe, Wally Beelbers and Martin van Ghent, with 1800 pts, just a hundred points ahead of the Jacques Potgeiter team so a close finish there. The ten teams fish on different boats daily, so while the skills of the individual anglers are important finding and raising the fish counts heavily, so the boats themselves were rated with Tarka, skippered by Callum leading with 3300 pts, Ol Jogi, with skipper Stuart a close second with 3100 points and B’s Nest not far behind with 2700 pts with skipper Mahomed at the helm.

Half the fun of competitions like this is the social side, and the whole party of visiting anglers really enjoy the festive spirit, with a memorable final prizegiving dinner before they fly back to South Africa, and most of them vowing to come again next year.

From Shimoni Simon Hemphill writes of the wind swinging in to north in the Pemba Channel, and like flicking on a switch striped marlin immediately appeared in the rips which mark the surface waters when conditions are right. With four boats out, all saw marlin activity and Martin Matiba, Raymond Matiba’s youngest son, caught his first marlin, a stripey of 64kgs from his dad’s boat Pika-Pika skippered by elder brother Bryan, a great day for this well known fishing family. Another boat from Diani, Zuri, in the same area saw about ten striped marlin in the day, so good portents for the fishing there as the ‘kaskazi’, the north wind, strengthens.

But the winds have not settled yet, November being the month of the monsoon change, and after a few days blowing from the North, the wind was back south this Monday at Watamu with an immediate drop in billfish catches. But boats find wahoo, dorado, tuna and kingfish, and many choose to do some bottom fishing for snapper and grouper as a variation.

Every November, the ‘Eye Go Fishing’ tournament is held at Mtwapa, to raise funds for the Kwale Eye Centre which does so much good work to help those with eye problems. This year the fish co-operated and twenty boats found plenty of sport over the weekend, in contrast to the poor fishing in previous weeks.

First in the professional stream was the team on Bahari Kuu, Rawal, Vikash Shah and Peter Mutemi with a good mixed bag including a nice wahoo of 21.5kg from Vikash, which won him the biggest non-billfish prize, while Delta, fished by Hugh and Justin Walters and Sean Mcgovern came second, with Nala third.

In the private boat stream, Phoenix won with Wolfgang catching a striped marlin, which won him the David Parry memorial trophy for the biggest fish, with Black Pearl second, on which Swee caught a sailfish which won her the ladies prize. John Webb and Robert Jessop came third in Nefertiti.

Most boats had catches of dorado, kingfish and barracuda, to make an enjoyable day and a successful fund raising.

Further north, in Watamu/Malindi waters, fishing has been quiet but with the wind swinging north for the last two days, Wednesday showed a marked improvement in catches. Fishing out from Hemingways, the seventeenth annual Captain Morgan Rum tournament is in full swing, with ten teams fishing four days each over the week with six or seven boats out daily and rest days in between.

These teams are the winners of an annual competition in South Africa for the biggest specimen of a number of both freshwater and ocean fish species, plus a number of teams of regular anglers who join in the fun, so a mix of experienced and novice anglers which makes for a good angling week, with generous libations of the eponymous dark rum from the sponsors!

With five sail the first day, four sail and a striped marlin the second day, then improving to ten sail and a blue marlin this Wednesday with the changing wind, lets hope the weather holds for the rest of the week, although there is rain around which can change the wind patterns overnight. Unreel, not in the tournament also caught a black marlin the same day, while Tarka had a pair of big grouper, one going 53kgs, a heavy fish to haul up from 200 metres down! Earlier in the week, the latter boat also caught a fine mako shark of 153kgs, an unusual catch in these waters.

The Wildfly tournament ended with better catches, with the teams on Simba and White Bear each catching two sailfish on fly tackle the final day, and hopefully the cameramen recording it all on the catching boats for their TV series.

Malindi boats have had some good days, Snowgoose getting seven sail one day with team headed by Andrea from Fishmania in Italy, fishing five days, and Eclare bagged ten sail over five days for the Kevin Luther group, so the next few weeks should see marked improvement in the fishing.

This week has seen the Wildfly tournament being fished out from Hemingways. Wildfly are a South African company which specialises in fly fishing safaris, and makes a series of films widely shown on TV, seen in Kenya on Multichoice satellite TV, and they have brought six teams of anglers fishing four days with the scoring emphasis on sailfish caught on regulation fly tackle, a sport that has it’s own strict rules.

But the sailfish have been hard to find, and while there are sail both at Watamu, mostly in the Sail Alley area close to shore, and in the Malindi area, wide spread from Malindi up to Ngomeni, they are very difficult to raise with only one or two lucky boats coming home each day with a single flag.

On Sunday, the first day, Stef de Beer was the lucky angler, fishing on B’s Nest, with a sail tagged and released, while the next day Gareth George on Instedda released a sail.

The next day was an official rest day but many of the anglers opted to venture out and try by more traditional means, and Ol Jogi returned with a striped marlin tagged and released by Francois du Plessis as well as a good catch of bottom fish from out in the Rips, while Bamara, with Garry Cullen and friends, had a busy time fishing deep with five grouper and over a hundred snappers, these latter in the two-three kg range.

The third day of the tournament saw both David Coutzer on Ol Jogi and Cornelius Vermeulen on Simba scoring with a fly caught sailfish, so it remains to be seen how it works out the last day, Thursday, tho’ no sail had been reported by the 10am callup.

Earlier, Mr Beugels had two days on B’s Nest with a pair of sail each day, and later tried on Blue Eyes and got another sail, so he had a better run, although it is much easier to find sailfish on traditional rods and reels than on the specialised fly tackle. Contagious had a pair of sail, and Castle Lager also had sail, a pair of singles, while Tega released a black marlin, the only one of this species caught this week. A 77kg bull shark was released from Tarka, and most boats find a wahoo or two and some dorado, prevalent when there is a lot of weed in the water.

When fish are hard to come by on the surface, as is often the case when the wind does not get up at midday then fish deep is the answer, and Unreel came in with four giant trevally tagged as well as some bottom fish which points the maxim ‘fish for what is there, not what one hopes is there!’ With the wind now swinging north some days, we must wait for the north wind, the ‘kaskasi’ to blow properly to get the fishing going!

The Driftwood Gamefish Extravaganza was fished out of Malindi last week with eight teams competing and fishing four days. This is the 17th year of this tournament organised by Basil Hill, with all the teams coming from South Africa except one team from Zimbabwe, and while the fishing was slower than one would expect at Malindi, they ended up with two black marlin, sixteen sailfish and good catches of smaller fish, tuna, kingfish and dorado.

There is a lot of dirty water coming down the rivers, which made fish hard to find as they move out from traditional areas into cleaner water out deep, but late on the first day when the crew on Neptune was despairing of finding fish in brown water and surrounded with seaweed, there was a hit on the downrigger, and a marlin burst out of the sea chasing the bait, which it continued to attack until it found itself firmly hooked. Duly tagged, this gave the team points which eventually helped them take first place overall.

Snowgoose was the only other boat to catch a marlin, and Unreel had a good catch of four sailfish on the last day, but despite the slow fishing the event was much enjoyed by all.

At Watamu, the fish have also been quiet, without a marlin being reported in the last week, but Castle Lager had a good day on Monday with five sailfish and White Mischief had three sailfish over the weekend. Seastorm found a sailfish, a wahoo and a kingfish for angler Mauricio Gasara.

Other boats have had to be content with the sort of mixed bag characteristic of the area, but Ol Jogi, with six yellowfin, three dorado and two wahoo, and Tarka, with a giant trevally of 38kgs and a couple of 16kg wahoo have both kept their anglers happy. Alleycat reported the catch of a long - nosed shark, a new one to me, but it’s scientific name might prove it to be a more familiar species!

The Casino Malindi tournament will be fished at Malindi over the weekend of `14th/15th January, and anglers should put this in their diary with the excellent array of good prizes on offer, while this period usually offers the best array of fish with all the billfish around. The Watamu SFC Xmas competition is another tournament with a wide range of fantastic prizes and will be on the 28th and 29th of December, always very popular with holidaymakers.

Next week will see the Wildfly tournament at Hemingways, when the makers of the popular TV series will be keeping six boats busy for five days, closely followed by the Capt Morgan Rum annual competition with teams from South Africa.

There is always a lull in tourist activity after the busy August/September period and before the run up to the Christmas holidays, and this has been marked in the fishing business this year with few trips out in recent weeks. At present this is probably accentuated by inertia on the part of the fish themselves, as when catches are poor clients tend to hold off and wait for more activity.

Calm warm seas also contribute to fewer fish around, as fish often hold deep in hot weather and without the stronger afternoon winds to bring them up catches have been mainly limited to a few yellowfin, wahoo and dorado, with an occasional sailfish to spice things up.

Tega is back in action at Watamu now, and started on Monday with a sailfish on the banks and some small fish, and Alleycat found two sail the same day. Earlier, Tarka caught a small bullshark of 86kgs, and another day they had a good mixed bag with a yellowfin of 20.5kgs and a wahoo of 19kgs as well as a kingfish and a dorado, and Castle Lager also released a sailfish.

Hemingways boats have been busier these last few days, with White Bear having a non stop action day scoring 19 yellowfin and a wahoo this Wednesday, good to see bigger catches of yellowfin as both these fish and wahoo normally are plentiful in the October/November period, but less markedly so this season. A few days earlier the same boat had a good mixed bag with Gary Lemke on the rods, catching 7 yellowfin, 4 wahoo, a dorado and tagging a sailfish, while Simba had a couple of giant trevally, one big one estimated at 40kgs and released.

Billfish are reported from the Pemba Channel, where skipper Simon Hemphill went out on Broadbill, and after releasing a sailfish, hooked into what they identified once it had been played to the boat as a short billed spearfish, estimated at 25kgs - his first personal catch of this species, which is very rare here, although as skipper he has seen about eight caught over the years - his father Pat, with fifty years experience on the water had only seen two in all that time! White Otter tagged a striped marlin a few days before, so the billfish season looking to be starting down south.

During the Malindi Festival, with sailfishing slow, the crew on White Mischief decided to try for a broadbill swordfish caught during the daylight hours by the deep drifting method. Such a catch has not been made in a tournament here yet, and tho’ they were unlucky in their quest they did hook two interesting species hitherto unknown in our waters, a sickle pomfret and a black snoek! One wonders what other monsters might be lurking there, 500 meters down in the murky depths!

No fresh news from Malindi this week, but earlier Neptune had taken out Dave Lewis and Terry Smith, well known British fishing scribes, who were particularly interesting in deep jigging and surface popping techniques, both increasingly popular with experienced overseas anglers. Both were very impressed with their bag of giant trevally, six other trevally species, groupers and snappers as well as wahoo, kingfish and dorado. We hope their photos and articles will entice many other anglers to Kenya’ shores!

While there were sailfish around in both Malindi and Watamu waters this last weekend when the Malindi International Festival was fished, they were hard to find and elusive when they were raised, with several teams having quite a few shots at the fish that attacked the baits. The winning team of anglers on Tarka , Phil Revett, Paul Worthington and skipper Callum Looman, managed to catch and tag two sail on each day of the weekend fixture, which with 712 points put them ahead of the second team, Craig Griffiths, Jon Cavanagh, Brett Ayton and Peter Darnborough, on Alleycat, who also got four sail but the winners had a better bag of small fish including a giant trevally which put them well in the lead.

Clueless,fished by Paul Dawson, B.Ogden, Eric van Vliet and Jamie Walsh was third with 385 points, while the Top Angler award went to Phil Revett and the Lady’s prize to Sara Huth. The weather was warm and calm, and the sailfish were widely spread out over the Watamu, Boiling Pot and Malindi areas. The event was kindly sponsored by Capt Andy’s Fishing Supply, Raymarine and Civicon, to whom all thanks.

The previous Friday saw the light line Churchill Cup being contested by six boats, with the winner being Clueless, fished by R. Duff and D. Ogden, with a sailfish and three dorado. Second was Unreel, with Phil Revett, Rob Hellier and Steve Webb fishing catching four giant trevally. Rob Duff and Phil Revett shared the Top Angler prize each with 1000 pts.

An interesting catch was recorded on White Mischief, which with the sail so hard to find decided to go for broke and try for a broadbill swordfish, using the deep drop method. A swordfish has not yet been caught by this method in daylight in a local tournament, and indeed they were not lucky in finding one but they did catch two species unknown in local waters, a sickle pomfret and a black snoek, both while angling on the bottom in 1600 feet of water. Neither score points in tournaments where only species listed in the IGFA record charts count, but it would be interesting to find out more about some of these deepwater species.

Neptune, earlier in the previous week, took out Dave Lewis and Terry Smith, well known British fishing scribes, who were particularly interested in deep jigging and surface popping methods of catching fish, both increasingly popular styles amongst experienced anglers from overseas. Whilst getting facts and photos for their articles, they tried these two methods with skipper Angus Paul near various reefs in the Malindi area, and were rewarded with a variety of different species, seven different species of trevally including over twenty giant trevally, groupers and snappers as well as wahoo, kingfish and dorado. One does need experience for these different styles of fishing and such anglers usually bring their own specialist tackle.

There have not been a lot of other trips out, with clients short on the ground, but B’s Nest with skipper Mahomed Fadhili found a pair of sail for Helena Galmander and Yngue Norgren this Wednesday, and Kipapa also had a pair of sailfish earlier. Ol Jogi released a big bull shark, estimated at 600 lbs, for Greg Breckenridge and Castle Lager has continued catching sailfish, with three released on Monday.

From Shimoni skipper Simnon Hemphill writes he caught a spearfish, his first personal catch as these fish are rare here, ‘tho he has has about eight now altogether on his boat, and White Otter tagged a striped marlin.

The boats started to go out again after a week of solid rain when about 350 mms, or fourteen inches, had fallen from Sunday to Sunday, with over eight inches on the heaviest day - not much fun fishing on a day like that! The end of the week also saw two power outages, the first just under a day and a night long followed by a second lasting over twenty-five hours, making problems for the hospitality industry as well as private homes.

However, some sailfish were around on Wednesday last week, when Simba and Alleycat both released one each, as well as catching wahoo, dorado and yellowfin tuna. Simba had a better day five days later with three sailfish and half a dozen yellowfin with the crew fishing, while Unreel tried bottom jigging successfully with two amberjack of 48 and 28 kgs, as well as some snapper and grouper. Next day the latter boat found two giant trevally which were released - these are resident fish and could easily be fished out if no effort were made to conserve them. They live on the edge of the reef down deep and concentrate in particular areas, so with GPS precision and downriggers they are particularly vulnerable.

This week the fishing at Watamu seems quiet, although Tarka found a sailfish on each of two trips, and Blue Eyes had a good day on Wednesday with three sailfish, while B’s Nest also released a pair of sail with Niel Trestrail fishing as well as boating a couple of wahoo and a yellowfin. Alleycat released a big bull shark, estimated at around the 230kg mark - most sharks are released now since the majority of the species are on the world’s endangered list.

Jasiri had a four day charter up at Lamu during which they tagged eleven sail with anglers Yob Achthoren and Henk Vermela, so it looks as if the sailfish are gathering up in that part of the country. November usually sees a fantastic run of sail at Kiwaiyu, but whether boats will be fishing there this season must depend on the security situation.

This weekend the Herbie Paul Memorial Festival Tournament is being fished out from Malindi over the Saturday and Sunday, with the Churchill Light Line competition on the preceding Friday - in this latter, lines are restricted to 10kg breaking strain, with the weight of the fish caught being divided by the breaking strain of the line on which it was caught - when one sees a 3 or 4 kg line it is amazing to think of sailfish of perhaps 25kgs being caught on it, as it is little thicker than the leader used for a two or three pound trout.

I mentioned last week the Capt Morgan Rum Tournament, but got muddled over the dates, as this will be fished from Hemingways starting 19th November for a week. Organised by the vendors of that same tipple, groups of anglers who have won tournaments and caught the biggest fish of various species all over South Africa converge on Hemingways Resort for several days of sailfishing and socialising, and is a very popular annual event.

For five days heavy rain has fallen along the Coast, with about 200mms recorded here at Watamu by Thursday morning, and strong winds blew over the weekend before the rain actually started to fall. Storm warnings caused some boats to be put onto sheltered anchorages, but the sea itself was not too rough, and once the rain started the sea was comparatively calm with only light winds, as is often the case when the rain is really heavy.

In previous years with rainy days in October yellowfin tunny turned on and could be seen feeding on the surface splashing in big shoals with many sharks amongst them, but this does not seem to be the case this year, although anglers who chose to brave the rain were rewarded with catches of sailfish, wahoo and dorado.

Skipper Pete Darnborough in Alleycat, who has been fishing these waters for thirty years, was undeterred by the weather, and had a good day releasing a marlin and a sail on a windy day before the rain started, while Castle Lager had a good run over a week with twelve sail , including six on their best day, while sister twinhull Contagious, also found four sail one day - all these fish along Sailfish Alley in front of the hotels and along the reef running out to the Banks. Simba is now back in action, and tagged a sail, after a couple of earlier days with tunny, wahoo and dorado, but there were not many other trips out during the week.

The previous week at Malindi saw some good fishing, Gerard Zwaan and Jan Kwakernaak on Neptune releasing a black marlin estimated at 65kgs and four sailfish, as well as boating a big 27kg wahoo and a kingfish. The same boat next day with a client from South Africa and his young sons, released a good sailfish over 30kgs, and landed a barracuda and a dorado, as well as a fine giant trevally which they tried to release, but it came up dead so was boated and weighed at 43kgs.

Eclare and Snowgoose went out with a party of fly fishermen lead by Kiki Fernandes and Johnny Onslow, however the weather closed in and made fly fishing difficult, but Mark Brooks and Craig Dickwerts both managed to catch a sail on the long rods when a pack of eight sail came up behind Eclare - good fishing! Tina also did well releasing a couple of sail, and getting a 21kg yellowfin, as well as a 16kg dorado, some wahoo and kingfish and a bluefin trevally for a splendid mixed bag. Not many other trips have been made recently.

With the Malindi Festival being fished next weekend over the holiday, and the Captain Morgan Rum tournament with several teams from South Africa at Hemingways about the same time, there should be plenty of boats in action and more news from the fishing world over the next few weeks.

Latham island is a small uninhabited rocky isle that rises out of very deep water forty miles out from Dar-es-Salaam, notable because of the great variety of gamefish in it’s vicinity. This tournament has become an annual fixture with excellent sponsorship, and due to it’s popularity there are not enough game fishing boats locally for all the contestants. So every year at this time a fleet of the top Kenya sportfishing cruisers make the long run down south to compete.

This year the winner was Tanzanian boat Mistress with two blue marlin tagged, skippered by well known Kenya captain Ali al Harazi. Second place went to Unreel, from Watamu with skipper Rob Hellier, which despite losing a good blue marlin, had a big catch of sixteen yellowfin tuna, running up to 40kgs each and a wahoo, while third was B’s Nest with a striped marlin released, and Tarka, also with good catches of tuna and wahoo, came in fourth - both these are Watamu boats, with local skills proving effective in far off waters!

An interesting catch was two rare short billed spearfish on White Bear, these fish are more common down south than in Kenyan waters and this same boat last caught spearfish off Watamu nearly twenty years ago - a cast of which can be seen on the wall at Hemingways!

The weather was wet and calm, important as there is no suitable overnight mooring off Latham, and the boats have to run a dozen miles to another island to anchor.

On the return run, passing through the Pemba Channel off Shimoni, many of the boats had marlin strikes, with Tarka hooking into a very big blue marlin which spooled all the line off a 24kg reel. When this occurs there are three possibilities - break the line, pray, or for action skippers like Callum Looman, clip the whole rod and reel to another line and throw it overboard! The first rod was duly recovered, but reels do not function their best when they have been deep under water, and the line eventually broke to free the huge fish.

It would seem from this that there are probably plenty of marlin around in the Pemba Channel, and Broadbill, with skipper Pat Hemphill, played a good fish on 15kg line which eventually broke free, but there have been very few charters and when boats don’t go out, they can’t find fish!

With most of the boats away, it has been a quiet week at Watamu, but both the South African catamarans Castle Lager and Contagious came home with a couple of sailfish flags, while Seastorm released a good bull shark of about 150kgs for Poultenay Courtenay and Alleycat tagged a small mako shark, rare in these waters and the only shark which scores gamefish points in tournaments here, most of which require sharks to be released due to their endangered species status. Earlier in the week this same boat released a black marlin and a sail, and another day caught seven wahoo with Mr Yencken fishing as well as losing a marlin so there are still billfish around as well as the yellowfin tuna and wahoo which normally proliferate this month, with warmer and calmer days out at sea.

The first major tournament of the season here is the Malindi Herbie Paul Memorial Festival over the holiday weekend of the 22nd/23rd October - it looks as if there will be plenty of sail and yellowfin tuna in Malindi waters so good action is expected. 

The Kenya Association of Sea Anglers annual awards dinner was held at Ocean Sports Resort at Watamu last Saturday, reflecting some great fishing achievements over the past season which ran to the end of April 2011.

Neptune, skippered by Angus Paul, won five trophies, most sailfish on a professional boat, most marlin tagged and released, most sailfish tagged and most giant trevally tagged. Best Junior (under 18) angler Peter Brumby also won his trophy, fishing on Neptune, for two sailfish in a single competition.

Tarka, with skipper Callum Looman, won the trophy for the most marlin caught on a professional boat, while Alleycat, skippered by Pete Darnborough won the most sharks category and Jasiri, with skipper George Allen, had the most broadbill swordfish. For private boats, Sand Dollar won the most marlin caught and White Mischief the most sailfish.

Sean Darnborough received terrific applause in a popular win of the under 12 Junior Angler for his eight sailfish in a season, and Reiner Weilder was awarded the best marlin prize for his black marlin on Eclare, released and estimated at 260kgs on 24kg line, a sterling effort which took him four hours of hard work!

There were many other awards, notably a 154kg broadbill on White Mischief caught by Nick Michaelides, a black marlin of 391kgs on Unreel, a striped marlin of 50kgs caught on fly tackle by Garry Cullen on White Bear, a 104kg striped marlin on Kamara II by Brett Ager , a blue marlin of 181kgs by Jim Robertson on Black Widow and the Lady’s prize for Sara Huth for a black marlin on White Cap.

Chairman Simon Hemphill spoke to thank the staff and management at Ocean Sports for an excellent meal, and Anne Taylor, Sue Lawrence-Brown and Roz Clark for organising it all, while Andy Thomas acted as MC and organised collation of all the trophy data.

Most of the Watamu boats set off on Monday for the Latham Island tournament run by the Dar-es-Salaam Yacht club so there is not a lot of fishing news from Watamu this week. Unreel, tagged a black marlin earlier, and they also had another on the long run down to Dar, while regular angler Gordon Abrams fishing with friend Phil Rivett on Seastorm also tagged a black marlin, and the same boat released three sail the previous day for SJ Botts, Thomas le Olerg and James Watson, a good start for the season for skipper Steve Webb as the boat has just come back into the water after her annual overhaul.

At Malindi, the boats which had been fishing the Banks have now found sailfish and yellowfin tuna nearer to home in the Malindi / She Shale area, which earlier in the season had been too rough. Neptune started well in this area with five sail one day, and next day both this boat and Eclare found a couple of sail. On Saturday Neptune got three sail, 30 yellowfin and a dorado - they were attacked by a pack of sailfish and managed to catch three of these, always an interesting experience as these fish always leap away in different directions, leaving the skipper to try to manoeuvre the boat to avoid running out of line while the anglers struggle in a panic to untangle crossed lines and keep their lines tight!

So it looks as if the sail will be there for the Malindi Festival over the holiday weekend 22nd/23rd October, take time off and join in the fun then.

September is the transitional month when the rough weather of the June-August period starts to moderate, the strong winds abate and the sea is calmer, but the consequence is that the billfish move on from the Watamu banks area and wahoo, yellowfin tuna and giant trevally often make up the daily bag on the fishing boats.

There are still marlin and sail to be caught however, as Unreel showed last Thursday when they returned to harbour with three black marlin flags, as well as three sailfish and a giant trevally. While these marlin are normally caught on live bait, it is interesting that on this occasion all three marlin were caught on small sailfish lures with a bonito belly strip , in fact on the same lure! I expect this lure will now spend plenty of time in the water!

` Tarka, with skipper Callum Looman is always a boat in the news and a regular in the top three marlin boats annually, and with three more marlin in the last week improving the tally, she (boats are always feminine by seafaring tradition) must be a front-runner for top scorer this season also. A good day on Sunday with a marlin, four sail plus a couple of wahoo and a kingfish and a yellowfin tuna, is the sort of mixed bag which keeps any angler happy and active all day. This was followed next day with a black marlin, a sail and a yellowfin, this time with experienced British angler Phil Rivett, no doubt practising to improve on his fourth place last year in the Malindi Festival next month! Ol Jogi has also been out, with a trip bottom fishing, when a big amberjack of 40kgs was caught - these fish live deep near the bottom on the far out seamounts and Rips area where the water is much colder than on the surface. Alleycat was grounded for maintenance when a break appeared in the bookings, but was back in action again with a sailfish earlier in the week.

The Malindi ‘Herbie Paul’ Festival is the oldest tournament on the coast and was originally fished over a week in November, to start off the fishing season there. Now fished over the October holiday weekend, the light line Churchill Cup will be on Friday 21st October for the thin thread aficionados , followed the next two days, Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd by the main competition. With the weather calming now the sailfish focus usually switches from the Banks to the Malindi/ Mambrui area, and Neptune was showing the way when with Guy Raemacker last Wednesday they had a great day with five sailfish and 27 yellowfin fishing the Malindi waters, and plenty of sailfish were showing in this area. A few days earlier at Watamu the same team had two sail, a 26.5kg kingfish, two wahoo and an 18kg cobia, or black runner as they are often called here. So book a boat now for this fun competition, always well supported and a great social occasion.

Mtwapa is a centre for a lot of charter boats, with easy access to the many nearby hotels and good fishing, and Kipapa was out again last week with some keen anglers from South Africa. A double header of sailfish was raised, and Eugene Henning hooked and caught his first sail, a thrill for the whole family. Several good strikes on the downrigger came adrift, leaving the anglers wondering what particular monster of the deep had evaded them, and giving them some great stories!

Rain is always welcome in drought stricken areas of Africa, but not so good for the unfortunate boat skipper who, high on his flying bridge, has to face the sleety squalls and chilly winds with the water dripping down inside his not so waterproof jacket! But the fish enjoy this weather and rise to the surface feeding, and it was typical of a long wet day last Wednesday when Tarka came in with a catch of a black marlin and two sail, while Unreel had five sailfish and a mixed bag of wahoo and tuna, as well as another five wahoo falling off the lines. But the small baitfish are still very difficult to catch, and the skippers reckon if they can catch a frigate mackerel, they will almost certainly raise a marlin! Tarka had other good days out, with eight wahoo one day, and a good marlin estimated at about 230 kgs released. Ol Jogi found two sail and four nice wahoo, from 15-20kgs for angler Hugh Buxton, while Vuma also tagged a sailfish, so all the boats finding billfish.

Alleycat only had a couple of trips this week, but with a pair of black marlin one day as well as three yellowfin tuna, and a black and three sail, plus a wahoo and a yellowfin another day, it is surprising not more anglers are around to experience this sort of fishing. Many years ago one had to book a year ahead for this August/September run of black marlin and sailfish on the good boats, with mostly local anglers, but the high cost of fuel these days makes even the run down from upcountry expensive, let alone the boat costs.

Castle Lager is a big ten metre catamaran owned by a syndicate of South African anglers, and one of their teams has started the season with a pair of sailfish released. Twin hulled catamarans are very stable fishing platforms, ideal for the rougher conditions often encountered at this time of year, and are very popular in South Africa, although there are not so many here, where skippers prefer the deep V type fishing cruisers with flybridges, mostly of American or Australian origin, though many locally built wooden boats have been upgraded with flying bridges in recent years. And with fish often active in wide spread areas, speed is essential in a modern fishing vessel, usually capable of twenty knots or 34 kms/hour.

The Kingfisher fleet at Malindi is all back in the water again, Neptune with her new engines running well, and was soon into the frame with a black marlin with regular angler Peter Hofmann, who also tagged two sail and landed a 17kg wahoo. Peter has caught huge numbers of fish here over the years and is one of our most regular visitors. On other days the same boat had scores of six, four, three and two sails with some missed marlin strikes, while Tina, on their first trip of the season with Dubai angler Rick le Monnier, released a black marlin and Eclare boated a black marlin which had been savaged by sharks close to the boat as well as releasing two sail. Tina also had a good day with an Italian family, with the father, a keen angler introducing his two young sons to the sport fishing scene, coming home with a sailfish, a yellowtail trevally and a yellowfin tuna.

Saturday 24th September sees the annual prize-giving dinner of KASA, the Kenya Association of Sea Anglers, to be held at Ocean Sports. Annual trophies will be awarded, and an excellent meal assured, with a disco to follow. Open to all, and a must for fishing enthusiasts.

We have moved into September now, and it is in the middle of this month when the weather usually changes with warmer temperatures and calmer seas, but so far the wind has continued to blow strongly. making for those choppy days, particularly in the afternoons, when billfish seem to come up to the surface to feed.

So it was not surprising to see Alleycat come in on Wednesday with two black marlin flags, one fish of 77kgs which had swallowed the hook and was badly injured so it was boated, and the second which was released, a slightly bigger fish. Tarka had returned a little earlier with a black marlin and two sail flags, so good fishing there, and obviously the marlin run is still going well, and the boats are also catching a lot of wahoo up to the 20kg mark.

The wahoo run generally peaks in October, and bigger yellowfin tuna also can be expected so good portents for the next couple of months, although the hotels are beginning to empty after the August season, so not so many anglers to be found now.

Unreel, with skipper Rob Hellier, has also been busy in the marlin bonanza, and with regular overseas angler Phil Rivett soon found a black marlin on his first trip soon after arrival - Phil has won many tournaments here over recent years and releases all his fish. Vuma, famous charter boat formerly owned by veteran James Adcock at Mtwapa, and now chartering at Watamu started her season well with a couple of sailfish and a good yellowfin of 15kgs, while both the Hemingways boats in action scored a pair of sailfish, B’s Nest with anglers Ian Carling and K,Sprules and Ol Jogi with the Jonathon Topping family.

Malindi boats have been in action, and Neptune, recently launched with her new Perkins engines, christened them with a black marlin, while Eclare found at least three sailfish on four consecutive days, amongst them a great day with Peter Wahl, the editor of Global Angler, a well known German fishing magazine, who also managed to take some amazing action shots. In the seven days he and his friends fished they caught twelve sailfish, and a great variety of other fish, giant trevally, wahoo, kingfish, barracuda and tuna, although he had no luck with the marlin.

Young Alister Paul is only six years old, and out with his dad Angus on a trial run in Neptune, he hooked and landed his first sailfish on his own, unassisted - quite a feat at that age! However, ringing the bell at the fishing club to celebrate, meant drinks all round - on Dad!

Even on quiet days there is much to see at sea, the sea birds, giant whale sharks, huge and harmless, the biggest fish in the ocean, and as a special treat humpback whales, which are usually around at this time of year. Skipper Howard Lawrence -Brown in his Kipapa has been lucky enough to show all these to recent clients, as well as on two separate occasions with young anglers, catching a turtle! This is a rare occurrence, usually on a multi-hooked Rappala which hooks into the turtle’s shell as it swims across a line, by mistake - but one has to fight the turtle to the boat to remove the hooks, as to cut the line with a length of line dangling behind would be certain death eventually for the turtle. And they are very, very, strong and hard work to bring in - but happily, once released they swim away strongly, unharmed.