It’s been almost four months since the last news, but this doesn’t mean there has been no fishing – the ‘off season’ in the sea fishing community is indicated by many hotels shutting for annual maintenance, and the same applies to boats, but some boats keep working all year these days, and good action has been seen when the weather permits.

Boats are starting much earlier than used to be the case and the beginning of July now seems to kickstart the action as the 4th of the month had Tarka in action from Watamu with a pair of sailfish, three wahoo, three dorado and a kingfish, a good bag but a couple of days later, they had their first marlin. Alleycat was away a week later with two black marlin in the day, following this the next day with another pair of blacks – a good feeling for the skipper with four marlin in his first two days out!. The same boat had another black marlin a day later, while Tarka had six sailfish the same day following up with a marlin and five sail, so a really good run in the first half of the month.

B’s Nest from Hemingways was also in action early in the month with a pair of sailfish and a giant trevally all tagged and released, and Ol Jogi had a couple of days with sail then caught a nice black marlin estimated at 100kgs for angler Christian be Beer, and a few days later tagged another black of 120kgs..

From Malindi, Neptune started well with angler Peter Vogt from Germany tagging a striped marlin, an unusual catch so early in the season, or was it a straggler from last season’s run? The next day they had five sail and a giant trevally followed by eight sailfish a couple of days later. At this time of year all the boats are fishing the Banks, while the Malindi boats often find sailfish near the Boiling Pot  if they come down or return via that area.

Regular angler Peter Hoffman also fished on Neptune and started well tagging a 140kg black marlin and releasing three sailfish, and he also had a 19kg yellowfin tuna for variety. Another day they had fourteen sail, an amazing catch at this time of year. Snark also had six sail one day, and all the boats are getting a sailfish most days.

The end of July and beginning of August signalled more good marlin fishing, with Tarka finding three black marlin on each of two separate days, and a single black on the intervening days, a total of eight marlin and some sail as well in five days! A quieter week then followed with the marlin coming back again mid-month,

Ol Jogi tagging a black marlin  for Eion Walsh. The same boat with Johann de Clerk and Gerhard  Bessenger fishing then had two blacks estimated at 150 and 180kgs, while the same day B’s Nest tagged two marlin estimated at 110 and 260kgs with Oliver and Jack Smithson fishing, a memorable day.

So a great start to the season and more boats will soon be fishing.