An Adventure in Africa

Capt Andy's Fishing News

Christmas is almost here, and at Watamu that means the Watamu SFC annual Xmas tournament, to be fished on Dec 28^th and 29^th from Ocean Sports.

Santa Claus will be bringing an amazing gift this year, as Capt Andy's and Yamaha Marine, who are sponsoring the tournament, are offering as the first prize a boat! A Yamaha W-19 fibreglass boat, must be quite the best prize ever offered in a tournament along the coast, a real incentive for all to enter.

And to give the smaller boats a real chance to beat the big professionals, all the teams points on each boat will be divided by the length of their boat, with boats over 30 ft all counted as 35ft. So, hook into a stripey with your 17ft family fisher and the big boys will need two marlin and then some to beat you – this must be an challenge no one can refuse!

Boats can start from any port the first day, at 6.30am, and pass the mlango at Watamu by 4.30pm, weighing in at Ocean Sports, while the second day start is 6.30am from Watamu and back 4.30pm again. Drinks, eats and festivities at Ocean Sports, with the prize giving immediately after the weigh-in on Saturday.

There are still plenty of sail around, mainly off Malindi and Mambrui, but some around the banks also. Alleycat found a stripey out near the Rips recently, although not many boats have been fishing there yet, and there are plenty of giant trevally on the Banks, but only four of these can be allowed to score in the tournament, and sharks do not count at all.

As many anglers as one likes, so the family can all go out, with a seven rods limit; you'll need to tag six sail to equal one marlin, but some black marlin have also been caught recently so there is a real chance for anyway to hit the jackpot in this one!

Christmas is the season when all the private boats come down from upcountry on their trailers, and there are usually over a hundred boats to be seen in the water in Turtle Bay The seas are calm, and there are plenty of sailfish around, and a striped marlin was caught near the Rips recently, so the omens are good!

Last Saturday at Malindi ten boats took part in the annual Popes Trophy, a charity event raising money for the Alister Educational Trust. Notable were the number of young anglers taking part, with the team of Russ Brumby and his two sons Peter and Herbie winning on Neptune.. They were running equal with Nigel de Souza and Brendan O'Reilly on Eclare with four sail on each boat, when a treble hookup out of the blue in the last hour clinched first place, with young Peter coming Top Angler with four sail.

White Dove came third, with Arthur and Jackson Brown and Andrew and Arran Paul fishing, they had two sail and a big dorado of 12.5 kgs which took the prize for the best other fish for Arran. Generously sponsored by Capt Andy's, Ian and Batian Craig from Lewa Conservancy and Richard Collins from Kakuzi, all the youngsters won a prize so it was voted a very successful weekend.

The striped marlin have settled in the Pemba Channel now, where Pat Hemphill took out Kim Stuart and his two teenaged daughters and a friend, Three boats out saw twenty marlin, while on Broadbill all three girls caught their first marlin and Kim added a sail for a fantastic day – they'll all be hooked on fishing now!

Shuwari caught two stripeys, while Jasiri had one and a couple of sail, so flags galore at Shimoni. Simba went down there from Watamu, and yesterday they had two stripeys, one estimated at over 90 kgs, a very big one indeed, so it is all action down south.

At Watamu, Alleycat found a striped marlin near the Outer Mountains on the way out to the Rips, and sailfish are being caught in the area too. Overnight trips are popular,with Unreel scoring two broadbill for Montarell Luca who was accompanied by Alessandrio Gangio, a regular here well known as a fishing photo-journalist with articles in Marlin magazine in the USA.

Garry and Gai Cullen went fly fishing in Simba from Hemingways, and they tagged six sail on fly – three each luckily, so avoiding a marital argument! B's Nest found ten sail one day for John and Andrew Chandler and Lee Morris with Ol Jogi scoring six and Kaskazi five that same day, the fish obviously biting well!.

And this is to remind small boats, don't forget your rod and leave it behind!! (OPEN ATTACHMENTS for pics!)

Capt Andy's Fishing Newsletter
The off-season for sea fishing in East Africa runs from end April to early August, but is not defined by weather or absence of fish, although this period is usually rainy and many hotels close for refurbishment. The seas can be rough, but are normally fishable all year, and July has now become a month when there is good fishing to be found in the Malindi/Watamu area, principally around the Banks; small black marlin and some sailfish usually provide good sport.

Last year there were a lot of marlin early, with Tarka the leading boat having caught sixteen by mid August, but this year they are not so prolific, the top boat taking till the first week of September to score a half dozen. But sailfish are plentiful, in larger numbers than is normal for this period, with Neptune from Malindi tallying fifteen of these fish in one day in mid August – an amazing score even by height of the season standards. Greg Mutch the angler had read of these sort of sailfish scores, but never thought it could happen to him!

It was late in July when Snowgoose found the first marlin, with Neptune getting a couple the next day; Alleycat and B's Nest were soon catching as well, the latter boat tagging a nice fish guessed at 120kgs for Tom Powell to show there are always some bigger ones around.

Earlier in August, Neptune had tagged a dozen sail one day, and Snowgoose eleven, these Malindi boats often finding some fish over the shallow water of the banks as they motored down to Watamu, or even trying the Boiling Pot, which can be pretty wild at this time of year! Many years ago, when the old wooden boats were built locally and outriggers were made of bamboo, these bamboos would just break off at the base if one took the boat into this seething piece of water!

It was not all billfish action, however, as Tarka released a nice bull shark over 250 kgs, then another day fought a similar monster for over three hours before a misunderstanding put too much pressure on the line, and a break ensued! Most sportsmen don't mind losing a fish, but it is nice just to see it before it goes!

The weather has been quite rough, but fishable and normally clean and blue, with greener water coming in from time to time, resulting in poorer days. The current runs strongly north at this time of year, and when on a big fish for several hours, the boat ends up near Malindi!

Bait is hard to catch which makes fishing for marlin difficult as live bait is the preferred option – no bait, no marlin! As a corollary though, when bait is really plentiful the marlin often take a holiday!

Last season was probably the best ever for black marlin in the Watamu/Malindi area, with Tarka the top scorer for the season with 69 marlin, almost double the average.

Perhaps this season it will be the turn of the Shimoni area again, where Pat Hemphill in Broadbill has had his first marlin of the season, tagging a nice black of 250 lbs – but their major run, mainly striped marlin, starts more November time, when in good seasons these spectacular fish come up attacking the lures in packs of up to a dozen, a truly thrilling experience! White Otter found a couple of sailfish out in the Pemba Channel, so looks as if these early fish are there all up and down the coast.

The future for all sports depends on youngsters getting involved early in life, and from Kilifi comes a good story of young Jamie Ker who was out with his Dad when, right in the mlango at Kilifi, his rod went off with the reel screaming. Jamie, aged seven and a half, took the rod from the holder, and fought the fish standing up till it was close to the boat, when rough seas made it sensible to use the chair for the tail end of the fight. Father Angus made a fine gaff shot, landing the fish on the deck whereupon both the hooks of the Rapalla lure fell out! The rear hook broken off and the front ones were almost straightened out, but there on the deck lay a huge queenfish, or 'pandu', long and silver with five big spots, giving it the alternative name of 'five-fingered jack'. Back at the boatyard, on the kitchen scales it was weighed at 6.5kgs, more than double the weight of the IGFA Junior 'Small Fry' (under 10 years) record. It was weighed officially on the certified scales next day in Malindi by local IGFA representative Peter Ready, and the world record claim sent off to America – well done, Jamie! And may you catch many more.

Sailfish are difficult creatures, at Malindi the sea can appear to be a solid mass of these fish cruising on the surface, nonchalantly gulping down the small whitebait or sardines that they relish, while not a single one comes up behind ones' rod! Ol Jogi went out the other morning and had tagged six sail by 9.30am, just in front of the hotels. The anglers were no doubt wondering if they were fated to beat all the records, when the fish went down and not one more was seen all day!

The same boat went out some years ago, to immediately raise a pack of sail and tag two, with all the anglers groaning and moaning that they felt sick! The skipper wasn't going to let such an opportunity escape, and telling the green faced clients he was on the way home, circled around to hook another pair of fish – but sympathy then prevailed and he took the anglers back to harbour. Alerted on the radio, a couple of young Americans who had professed an interest at the bar the previous evening were hastily roused from bed and climbed on the boat, which had to be back on the mooring by 11.30am due to the receding tide. In the two hours fishing left another eight sail were tagged and many more raised, before beating the deadline home with twelve red flags! Beat that for a story!

The Kenya Association of Sea Anglers, KASA, annual dinner went well at the newly refurbished and very smart Ocean Sports pub in Watamu a couple of weeks back, with the many prizes going to lucky raffle ticket holders and a good evening had by all. With the new proposed Wildlife Act indicating that sports fishing could be classed with sport hunting and strictly controlled or even banned, anglers need an organisation to fight for their rights and their sport. In UK, where more people indulge in fishing than play football, it would be a brave legislator who would try to ban the sport, but there are plenty of oddballs who are trying!