The Watamu SFC International tournament was fished last weekend for two days, with the first day one of the quietest days in this tournament’s long history. One sailfish was released on Ocean Luhrs by angler Roland Biggs, plus a dorado, while the remaining twenty four boats only managed a kingfish, a wahoo and a couple of dorado between them all.

The second day, Sunday saw slight improvement, with Sand Dollar, fished by Chris and Simon Venn, Rob Floyd and Royjan Taylor tagging a blue marlin caught by the latter angler to tally 750 points. This placed the team first overall, with Royjan as Top Angler, and in second place came the Tarka team, Phil Revett, Tom Attwood and skipper Callum Looman. They had tagged and released four sailfish, and also had a kingfish, to add to their first day tally of one wahoo, for a total of 303 points. Third was the team on small dinghy Ocean Legend, Florian and Roy, who tagged two sailfish and caught a barracuda to garner 168 points, a very fine effort in such a small boat. Fourth was Unreel with a mixed bag of wahoo and dorado, and Top Lady angler went to Gina Scott on Shika for a barracuda.

Two days later the Friends of Kenya tournament was fished from Hemingways, two days and a night of continuous fishing, sponsored by Aggreko and Inshore Support from UK. Twenty two boats left at dawn on Tuesday, with many returning in the evening to resume next day, while the braver teams fished all night for broadbill swordfish. Six blue marlin, two broadbill and a sailfish were caught, with all the fished released.

Overall winner was the team on Shuwari, Craig Griffiths, Shadrack Baya and Juma Mbwana, which tagged two blue marlin while second came Simba, fished by Alex Oecofse, Nico Coetzer and Alistair James, also with two blue marlin tagged and released. One of these fish was estimated at 140kgs, the other at 190kgs.

Snowgoose, with Richard Roberts, Toby Miller and Capt Aboudi, was placed third with a blue marlin and a broadbill, while Neptune was fourth also with a blue marlin and a broadbill. A very big yellowfin tuna of 98.4 kgs was caught on White Bear, a magnificent fish as tuna over 200 pounds are very rare here.