The WSFC March Tournament was sponsored by the Club in partnership with Medina Palms, Peter Hoffman & friends of WSFC.

All the top five boats in the Watamu SFC March tournament caught marlin with the winning team on Black Widow, Jim and Jill Robertson, Adam Lenga and skipper Adam Ogden catching a blue and a striped marlin, both tagged and released, and two dorado for 1517 points.

It was a very close race as the second boat Unreel, fished by Russell, Malcolm and Peter Brumby and Rob Hellier, also tagged a blue and a striped marlin, but only had one dorado, so it was the extra dorado that provided the winning margin of only 7 points! Close indeed!

Pussycat took third place, with Danny and Charlie Webb and skipper Andy Adams, tagging both a black marlin and a sailfish, as well as four dorado and a wahoo for a score of 869 points, while fourth place went to the team on Clueless, Erik van Vliet, David Darnborough, Andrew Buckoke and Rob Duff, which also had a black marlin and a sailfish tagged.

Dilligaf won the small boat prize, with Mark Jury and Sean Pike from England doing well against the big cruisers, with Mark releasing a nice blue marlin estimated at 150kgs which won him the best billfish prize, and with a sailfish as well this boat came firth overall. Mark and Sean have both been coming fishing to Kenya for many years now so a nice reward for their persistence!

Junior Angler award went to Jameel Khan on Whatever it Takes for a big sailfish of 34kgs, and it was interesting to see that a spearfish was caught, a rare species of which only one or two are caught in Kenya waters each year. This is probably the first spearfish ever to be caught in a tournament here so a notable catch!

Twenty two boats took part, and a total of ten marlin, the spearfish and eight sailfish, kept anglers busy although the fishing was more active earlier in the week. The day after the competition the wind swung round to blow from the south-east, and 60mms of rain poured down – a welcome shower after a long dry period.

The hard luck story must go to Charlie Ackworth fishing on Alleycat, who hooked into a huge marlin on the Saturday – many hours later it had died down deep, and was too big to bring up as the line broke – a fish that could have won both the tournament and the half million shilling jackpot for a big marlin, which now carries over to next year!