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