The team of scientists from the London Zoological Society have had a busy week out from Watamu in their quest to tag tiger sharks with satellite tags. Fishing with skipper Pete Darnborough on Alleycat, they started with a tiger estimated at 320kgs, which was duly released with the tag safely in place. They then caught some other sharks, which are not targeted, and several tiger sharks of which one more was tagged, while another tag was fixed from Seahorse, the second boat assisting in this operation. On Tuesday, when it rained all day with about 125mms falling on the shore, they brought to the boat a monster tiger estimated at a thousand pounds (453kgs), a grander to the fishing fraternity, and this was safely released with its satellite tag due to send out information on the depth and position of the shark and other scientific information for several months.
Other good news is that Tarka, which has been fishing on the Rips, twenty miles out, found a striped marlin last Saturday, which they fought almost to the boat before the hook pulled out! However the next day, they repeated the trick with a striped marlin, but the disappointment was remedied by catching a black marlin! Good to see what must be the beginning of the striped marlin season in the Rips, which is usually triggered by the change in the wind to the north-east, the kaskazi, which has started to blow now.
In Malindi waters, sailfish continue to be caught. Neptune fishing with fly tackle on Wednesday had three strikes but failed to hook up, but then they caught one on conventional tackle. Eclare caught a single sail on Sunday from the three they raised, while Neptune earlier in the week released three from six strikes. Ol Jogi fishing up from Watamu tagged a sail for Greg and Gail Breckenridge and caught a barracuda as well. The first two weeks of December are usually the peak of the sailfish season at Malindi, so we should expect more action now, but fishing clients are few and far between with the depressed tourism pattern.
The Watamu SFC annual Xmas tournament is scheduled as usual for Dec 28th and 29th and this always has a good entry, with its incentives for small private boats. Sponsored by Capt Andy’s, points scored for fish are divided by the length of one’s boat, giving small boats a serious c
