There are fish around all year these days, although not many boats venture out in May and June, but with sailfish and marlin around in July on the Watamu Banks and Boiling Pot area more boats are getting into the action early.
Tarka found a black marlin and a sail at the end of June, with a bull shark of 113kgs and eight yellowfin with Pradip Patel another day, while Eclare from Malindi found sailfish as well but it was into July when catches became regular. Neptune recorded eighteen sail in ten trips, and Eclare notched up two sail on fly for Billy Lynch and his son, difficult at this time of year when windy and rough are not ideal conditions for fly fishing. Tarka had a good run of black marlin in the first half of the month, mostly small fish up to 100 kgs, but there are bigger ones there, as Unreel hooked a good fish estimated to go 200 kgs, but sadly it was completely eaten by sharks as they drifted up onto the shallows of the Banks.
Peter Vogt fishing in Neptune caught a 247 kg bull shark during his six trip safari, while another day with his friends showed two sail and six giant trevally, as well as a couple of wahoo and a kingfish, and a four sailfish day with two wahoo and some tuna showed the area at it’s busy best. Alleycat started mid month with a sail, followed by three sail with Rosa and Clayton Kimber, then a day with a black marlin around 110 kgs, but business slowed as August started and clients seemed fewer than previous years although the hotels seem fairly full with tourists – perhaps the financial depression world wide leaves them with less spending money.
Seahorse was early away with a sail in the first week of July, followed by a black marlin, then recorded two marlin on consecutive days at the beginning of August – all the marlin so far have been black marlin, which is to be expected at this time of year, in the 60-110 kg range, caught on various rigs from live bait to sail baits and even Rapalas or similarly deadly Halco lures!
From Hemingways B’s Nest, now skippered by Capt Mohammed Fadhili started in the last week of July with a sail and a yellowfin for Andy Kinder, following this up with three sail, a giant trevally and a kingfish for Sarah and Stefan Stankiewicz.
Mid July reports from Mtwapa found Ken Rodwell’s Delta scoring two sail one day and four a couple of days later, while Inca with skipper Eligio Battaia also reported some sailfish being caught, so it looks as if the sailfish are wide distributed already, a good sign.
With August approaching the halfway mark, boats are making good hauls of wahoo, kingfish and yellowfin with some sailfish, while the marlin are there but not in the numbers that made two years ago so memorable early in the season. So far the season has been similar to last year, but with the amazing run of marlin in December to April which made this the highest scoring season ever, one hopes it could be even better over the next eight months.