News courtesy of David Slater – Variable winds but quieter fishing

There have been some good days on some boats with others struggling as the fish have gone quieter this last week, even on the windier days when one might expect good action. No obvious reason for this, as the water looks good and a current still running, but that’s often the way with fish!

Earlier last week Snowgoose with Art van Davis and a friend had two striped marlin and two sail, while Neptune had a lot of marlin strikes but ended up with only sailfish, five of them however for an exciting day. The other Malindi boats all had a stripey, and the next day David Wilson on Tina tagged and released a very nice black marlin, which gave a magnificent aerial display of jumping near the boat – it was estimated at 250kgs, but sadly no one managed to get any photos. With most fish being released, a pictorial record is so important, and with modern digital cameras with amazing zoom lenses photography should be a breeze.

Eclare took a night trip outside the Rips, finding three stripies and a blue marlin, four sail and four broadbill, a fine catch especially as all the fish except two of the broadbill came to angler Egon Jenke’s side of the boat – frustrating for his partner. A super grand slam, and if a black marlin they fought for a while had not jumped off it could have been the coveted ‘fantasy slam’! Their biggest broadbill was estimated at 50 kgs, and to prove there are bigger ones around a couple of days later Unreel fought a fish for several hours, – it had died as it was wrapped in the line but weighed in at 113kgs, a very nice swordfish.

Snark has been in good form, with a blue and a stripey, as well as three sail for a grand slam, followed by two stripies and a sail for Ulf Gaetner. A couple of days after they had a blue and a stripey for Hillaeri Henk. Fly fishing fanatic Con Jooste on Eclare started his trip with a sail on fly, and then had a go at both a striped and a black marlin – both of these refused the fly but took a lure far back to be tagged, but how exciting it would have been if they had taken the fly!

Down at Shimoni the marlin are running, although weather problems with very calm days can make things difficult. Kamara II tagged two stripies and a sail, but the big excitement of the day was a huge mako shark, estimated at 230kgs, which took a 50 lb outfit – these fish are so powerful that they have to be fought at maximum pressure on medium tackle, and sadly the line popped when the fish was near the boat. A couple of days later the same boat had three stripeys and two sail, John Carr-Hartley from Botswana releasing two stripeys on twenty pound line estimated at 65 and 45 kilos, good fish on a light line.

With the calm weather, night fishing is popular at the moment, and there are plenty of broadbill swordfish in the areas outside the Rips. Ol Jogi, with the Basin family, released a black marlin over 100 kgs, a broadbill of 30kgs, and two sail, while boating another broadbill that died on the line for a grand slam. Keith Asherwood and Digo Casili on White Bear, got two broadbill, while after a good night’s fishing in Black Widow with his team of skippers from Dubai, when they tagged four broadbill, lost two more after a fight and had eleven strikes in all, skipper Adam Ogden decided to come in off Malindi, where in the deep water at the edge of the green lines they found seven sailfish for an outrigger crammed with flags on return!