A couple of weeks back I wrote that the fishing could hardly get better – but it has! One runs out of superlatives when things get better, and better, and better…..! The water in the Rips is now blue, the sea has calmed down and fishing conditions ideal. And reports of fantastic marlin fishing are coming in from north and south.

But watching the boats come in at Hemingways this Wednesday we counted twenty-one marlin flags from eight boats, with perhaps the best effort marked by the huge grin on the face of skipper Mohamed Fadhili who had led his anglers Julian Mills, Robin Minter-Kemp and Jonathon Lowe to a super grand slam in B’s Nest. One blue, one black and three striped marlin, together with a sailfish, all released, was the total score for the day – and for the anglers who have been coming to Kenya for many years quite their best day ever!

Simba released four striped and one blue marlin shared by anglers James Mason and Len Lippitt, while Tega, Tarka and Black Widow all flew three green flags for striped marlin, with each of them having three or four sail as well. Fishers David Bird and Terry Pendry had to be content with two stripeys and three sail on Unreel, a moderate day for skipper Rob Hellier after his catch of seven stripies a couple of days earlier, but one cannot do it every day!

Well known skipper Ali al Harazi, now in semi retirement, went out on Instedda recently, and caught his first striped marlin on fly tackle. Skippers usually don’t fish much themselves, and it was interesting to hear James Adcock, one of the longest serving skippers along the coast and who caught a striped marlin out with owner Adam Ogden on Black Widow on a fun day, remark that it was the first billfish he could remember catching himself for twenty years!

Fly fishing is all the rage these days, and one of our best lady anglers, Gai Cullen, caught her first striped marlin on fly on Simba, the first to be caught on this tackle by a lady on the East African coast. Well done, Gai. Jeremy Block caught two stripeys on fly on Ol Jogi,while Billy Lynch had a stripey on fly on Snowgoose.

Marlin are running at Shimoni in the Pemba Channel now, and Simon Hemphill reports catching 11 marlin in his Kamara II in four days, pretty good fishing in most years but just average this season! White Otter has had a day with three stripeys, and another with two, while Inca, running down from Mombasa with the crew for a charter, picked up a black and a stripey on the way, with four stripeys and a sail a couple of days after, with the clients on board! Kamara II had a multiple strike and caught four stripeys together from one pack, quite a feat.

Malindi boats are fishing the same areas for marlin as the Watamu boats, in the Rips, but also with strikes in the outer mountains and indeed, all over the place, although the sailfishing close to Malindi has gone off with dirty water obscuring the closer-in areas. Tina had a day with seven stripies, which seems to be the best score north of the Pemba Channel these days, while Snow Goose had four stripeys, also all four part of a multiple strike, with Herbert and Monica Lewald. Snark scored two blue and two striped marlin with Lindsay Casserly, who finished with 5 stripeys, 4 blue marlin, one black marlin and 27 sailfish for the nine days fishing in his trip.

Neptune has been out to the North Kenya Banks with a party interested in jigging on the bottom, and caught eight amberjack and varied bottom fish, but not much was seen in the way of billfish, while the water seemed very cold there.

Although strong winds have blown dirty water down from the river mouth, this proved to be just a surface phenomenon which did not upset the billfish, lurking hungrily below the surface, and the Tournament sponsored by the Casino Malindi had amazing fishing with sixteen boats catching a total of 44 marlin over the two days.

Boats could start and finish from either Malindi or Watamu, and it was Alleycat from Watamu, with skipper Pete Darnborough and angler Peter Hofmann, which snatched first prize with five marlin tagged, just ahead of the team of Ali al Harazi with Imran and Usham Musa on Instedda, which also had five marlin and were leading on the first day. A very close finish, and if one sailfish had not come unhooked on the latter boat it would have been a different story – but that’s the way fishing goes!

Third place went to the team on Eclare, novice fishermen Wilfried van Laarhoven and Ronald Roy from the Netherlands. Each team won three top of the line rods and reels and other prizes, with Mada Hotels giving the “Top Angler” Peter Hofmann a three day stay at Fig Tree Camp in the Mara, with game drives and a balloon safari. Sandra Young won the Top Lady Angler award, a sporty Swatch watch, with all the prizes being given out at a delicious buffet dinner at the La Griglia restaurant, to round off a very popular and successful competition.

Neptune had two striped marlin on the first day of this tournament, putting them in a strong position, but as they had different anglers booked for the second day they were not able to enter that day, but with three marlin by mid morning they could have run out as winners! This is often a problem with charter boats, so anglers had better plan a year ahead! The event will be January 15th and 16th next year, 2011.
All the boats fishing the Rips have been having fun with Blue Eyes and skipper Rob Coverdale taking anglers David Cawthorne and Julie and Brian Pollard out for three trips, for a total of five striped marlin, three sail and a short-billed spearfish. The latter is a rarity here, although the odd one is caught annually further south in the Pemba Channel, but this seems to be the first in our northern area since White Bear landed a pair in 1992 – interestingly in the same area out near the South Mlima of the Rips.

Other recent catches include a black and a striped marlin and a sail for Simon Rickaby on Seastorm, a grand slam which together with a 23.5kg wahoo and a dorado makes for a pretty good days fishing! White Bear with Marcel and Annick Prott who regularly fish with fly tackle had a striped marlin on fly, quite an achievement and definitely a couple of steps up the ladder from a sailfish! A week ago Tarka had an outstanding catch, with three stripies, two sail and two huge amberjack of 60 and 48.5 kgs, while Kipapa, up from Mtwapa, had three stripeys and two days later four stripeys.

Sand Dollar is another private boat which has had a good run, with trips of three stripies, a stripey and two sail and two stripeys and two sail – skipper Peter Mupe, who used to drive Kaskazi at Hemingways for many years, has obviously lost none of his skills with owner Chris Venn from South Africa.
The muddy water pouring down the Sabaki river from the up country rains has resulted in poorer sailfishing close to Malindi, when the sail tend to move further out to deeper water and join the marlin in the Rips. However as long as the underlying current continues to run north the fishing should remain good, and even improve as the strong winds moderate and the blue water pushes in again.

News Courtesy of Capt. Andy’s – Good fishing Continues with Marlin Arriving !

Superb fishing continues in most areas with marlin showing in the Rips regularly now, mainly stripeys with some big packs striking, while blacks are there and coming to both lures and livebait and some blues as well. Sailfish are still plentiful in the waters off Malindi, with the odd black marlin around the sail shoals, so skippers have the option of almost certain fish off Malindi, or the gamble with marlin further offshore.
A short day fishing is about five hours, so Watamu boats doing short days have more limited options, as both the Rips and Malindi can be too long a run, but marlin are also being caught in the Canyon and Mountains areas. Alleycat, with Nimit Patel from Nairobi fishing found a good black marlin live baiting in the Canyon and released at an estimated 230 kgs, as well as another small one about 60 kgs. The previous day on the same boat Jeremy Brown, a long time angler formerly in Nairobi and now working in UK, also tagged a black marlin. Tega had a good black of 160kgs tagged with Charles and Sarah Prior on a short day.
Last weekend however saw the marlin fishing peak in the Rips, with Unreel tagging a blue and four stripeys, with another blue and three stripeys two days later. White Mischief on a Sunday outing had a black marlin and two stripeys, with Tarka recording a black and three stripeys the same day. Alleycat had three stripeys the previous day, while Dave Plummer, Ian McNeil and David Isaac on Ol Jogi tagged a black marlin one day and a blue and a striped marlin the next day. Adam Ogden in his Black Widow went out with his crew and had a blue and a striped marlin, together with seven sailfish, for a grand slam. It doesn’t get much better than this!
Malindi boats have been concentrating more on the sailfish closer to home, and at the beginning of the week Snark had six sail on a short day, while Tina released eight sail on a short day, having had an 80 kg black marlin the previous day. The boats seem to take it in turns to be top scorer as Eclare had seven sail the next day, following that with ten sail for young Aidan Casserly who was being introduced to fishing by his Dad, regular angler Dad Lindsay, a veteran of fifteen years fishing. Snowgoose then caught six sail on a morning trip, while Neptune has been fishing the Rips for several striped marlin most of the week but had their best day off Malindi with a black marlin and eight sailfish.
Watamu boats have been sailfishing at Malindi as well, B’s Nest getting nine sail with a Russian crew and fourteen sail with the Goucher family, while Simba and Black Widow both scored seven sail and White Bear eight with the Russian fishers. Tarka had nine sail with Fergus Flynn and his son Douglas, and with the heavy rains upcountry there is a lot of muddy water coming down the river leading to good colour lines in the water from the currents which makes the sailfishing easier.
The Malindi Casino are sponsoring a tournament this weekend so with all these fish around there should be some good sport, and there are magnificent prizes to be won. The Mtwapa Cup follows at Mtwapa on the 17th, and the Delamere Trophy at Kilifi is over the weekend of the 30th/31st , and many of the regulars are beginning to arrive to fish these competitions.

News courtesy of David Slater – Brilliant fishing continues up and down the coast

The sailfish seem to have appeared all along the coast in big numbers, after a slow start earlier in the season, and it would seem that the season itself is a month or more behind schedule. This could be due to the weather patterns as the kaskazi wind started very late, so let’s hope it will continue this way for a few months!

In the Watamu/Malindi area, boats continue to catch plenty of sailfish, and if they are in the right spot, plenty of marlin as well. Interestingly, all three types of marlin are coming up, mainly striped, some blacks and even a few blues, so there has been plenty of variety for the anglers, and the boats have been busy due to the holidays.

B’s Nest from Hemingways had a particularly good run, with a stripey and three sail on New Years Eve, a rest on New Years Day, three marlin the next day, a black estimated at 120kgs and two stripeys for Leonid Zikeev, and then the day after two black marlin, estimated 150kg and 70kgs, and two blue marlin of about 80kgs for another Russian party, amazing fishing! White Bear had a good day with the Goucher family, with two stripeys and three sail, one of the latter being caught on fly tackle, and two other days with a striped marlin, while the other day in the week they were out they had to rest content with five sailfish with Barry and Tom Shaw!

Tega saw the MacTaggart family tag two striped marlin and three sail, with some dorado and tuna as well for a great family day, while Ol Jogi had a double of striped marlin as well as three sail for Angelo and Nicola Machesi, and Seahorse has had two doubles on black marlin.
Marlin were also caught on Seastorm, Instedda, Unreel and Black Widow, the latter tagging a black marlin for James Goucher, his first marlin! This usually costs you a round of drinks at the bar after ringing the bell!

Mombasa has had good fishing too, and Naz Khan reports that young Mansur, not yet ten years old but handling the rod himself, caught a sail and a striped marlin of 69 kgs on his boat Pika-Pika – it’s been interesting to see so many youngsters fishing and doing well over the holidays, helped by the calm seas and plentiful fish. Hooked at an early age, these will be the skippers of the future!

Malindi boats have been busy also – Thomas Fjastad went out in Neptune with his son Torsten up from South Africa with his family, and ended with nine sailfish. Snowgoose, finding it slow for sail, tried live baiting some frigate mackerel and in no time had a black marlin of 115 kgs, which unfortunately came in dead and had to be boated. This same boat then had ten sail with Rik van der Vlugt from Holland, out for his first deep sea experience with ambitions to catch a billfish – he ended up with 51 sail in six trips!

Russell Brumby has been fishing at Malindi for about thirty years, but this time he tried with fly tackle and landed his first sail on Snark. With son Peter they continued fishing with traditional light tackle, till a double header of sail resulted in the two fish going in different directions! One was on a small spinning rod with only 300 metres of line which came to an end, so the rod was tied to a buoy and thrown overboard – once the other fish was tagged, it was retrieved a mile away and the fish duly caught! A good fishing story, and especial thanks to Adrian Paul for his regular fishing news from Malindi