The new fishing season has started at the coast with the weather wet and windy, but in early July boats from both Malindi and Watamu braved the rough seas to find sailfish around the Banks, with Neptune, Snowgoose and Ol Jogi all releasing a couple of sail on their early trips. Alleycat also started mid July with two sail on their first trip, whilst missing a third strike, and Ol Jogi had a great day with two black marlin as well as two sail, having missed a couple of marlin strikes the previous day when the fish threw the hooks of the live bait.

Snowgoose ran down to the Banks in the second half of the month to find plenty of sail, and succeeded in scoring eight for a brilliant day, as another eight were raised and missed, and they also caught five good wahoo, while Tarka began her season with a black marlin, released by 9am, as well as catches of yellowfin tuna, dorado and kingfish for a great first trip – this boat was the leading marlin boat last season with a total of forty-one in all, a good score in what proved a poor marlin season.

Humpback whales are being seen regularly, a splendid bonus for anglers when these monsters breach with their entire bodies out of the water, a sight not to be forgotten! They visit our shores in the early part of the season on their annual migration then move away about October.

August is usually a very busy fishing month, but tourists are in short supply this year, with hotels poorly filled and not many trips are being made. Neptune found seven sailfish in the Boiling Pot area early in the month, and had another seven up so it does look as if there are good numbers of sailfish around, but the early run around Watamu is not always related to the main run off Malindi starting in October/November, but it could be a useful pointer. In the second week of the month both Tarka and Neptune caught a black marlin, with the latter’s estimated at over 150kgs, a good fish, but there have not been as many marlin around as is normal at this time of year.