The waters directly off Malindi saw a sailfish bonanza last week, with boats catching up to fourteen in a day – fishing more characteristic of late November and early December which is normally the peak time but which was quiet this season.
A group from the UK was fishing on Neptune and caught six sail one day, and next day they added seven more to their score, as well as wahoo, kingfish and dorado. They ended their trip a few days later with twelve sail and a wahoo, so very happy clients. The same day Snowgoose found fourteen sail with half of the Werner Gruber group, while Tina had seven sail with the rest of the group.
Snark, fishing with Werner Wirtz, had a slow day and were about to return with just a few small fish, when a black marlin took a bait on 15kg line and after a good fight they released a lovely fish of about 100kgs, a great effort on a light line and a nice surprise for what had seemed a dull day!
Five teams from the Belgium Big Game Fishing Club are currently holding their championships, and two of their members were having a practice day on Neptune, when they ended up with thirteen sailfish and five wahoo! When the tournament started one team on Tina started well with eleven sail, with the teams rotating to a different boat daily.
The Watamu boats have been busy, with Tarka finding a striped marlin and three sail a week ago, while Jasiri also tagged a stripey but after that marlin were harder to find, but Sand Dollar tagged a black marlin this Wednesday. Sailfish have been plentiful also, the boats going to Malindi to find these, and Tarka had a great day with fourteen sail. Instedda found five sail on Saturday and eight the next day, with Imran Moosa who comes up from Mombasa to fish weekends, and Simba tagged nine sail over two days, with Mark Allen catching three of these on fly tackle.
Unreel tried a day deep dropping for broadbill and succeeded in hooking one from 600 metres deep which weighed in at 72kgs. Tarka also had one on, but the hook pulled, these fish have very soft mouths and often escape!
The Delamere Trophy is being fished this weekend at Kilifi, and the Malindi International follows over the weekend of Feb 15th-17th, both popular tournaments.