Now that November is here, anglers look forward to the annual swing of the wind from south-east to north-east, and in the last couple of days there have been signs that this is close, with the weather much warmer and the wind in the east, with an off-shore breeze, the umande, in the early morning.

This has already improved the sail-fishing in the Malindi area, and boats from Watamu are beginning to find it worthwhile to journey up to Malindi to find that elusive sailfish for their clients. Alleycat and Tarka were both competing in an informal competition with a group of anglers from Zambia, and with Alleycat tagging four sail on the first of two days and five on the second, and Tarka scoring six over the two days, the area off Mambrui is beginning to produce fish in the manner for which it is famous. Ol Jogi, fresh from the win at the Malindi Festival, also had a good day off Mambrui successfully tagging three out of the six sail that they raised.

This week four teams from South Africa are fishing the annual Driftwood Extravagaza, an event which has now been running for many years, with many other annual events to follow including the Capt Morgan week at Hemingways towards the end of the month.

Trying something different, regular angler Giorgio Cefis in B’s Nest went bottom fishing and came back with over thirty red and ruby snappers – many a good meal there! And there are still some good yellowfin tuna around the Watamu banks area, as the anglers in Alleycat found last Tuesday when they caught nine tuna, with the biggest at 27kgs, and three wahoo as well, for those who want a change from sailfishing or are only fishing a short day when there is not enough time for the twenty mile run to the Malindi sailfish areas.. Tony Monaghan in Ol Jogi also had a couple of good yellowfin of 28kgs, while earlier in the week Thomas Bell on B’s Nest released a bull shark estimated at 120kgs.

The black marlin, which have been around at Watamu since July, finally seem to have moved away, but once the north wind, the kaskazi, starts to blow in earnest, a new run of these fish will be found, both in the Banks area and in the Rips, and in this latter area, twenty miles offshore, there should be striped marlin and blue marlin as well, as both these latter species are deep water inhabitants