We are now into October, the traditional month for the bigger tuna to arrive, and the good news is that these bigger fish are now being seen in Malindi and Watamu waters. But seeing is not the same as catching! Big tuna are notoriously difficult to catch, often moving very fast and with fantastic eyesight that sees the thinnest leaders in front of the lures.

Alleycat had a good day this Wednesday with eleven yellowfin averaging over 20 kgs and the biggest tipping the scales at 41 kg - a fish like this gives a very hard fight on any tackle, so some weary anglers there! Earlier in the week the same boat found two sailfish as well as wahoo and school tuna.

Castle Lager had fun on Tuesday, releasing two black marlin, and Tarka released a black marlin estimated at 130 kgs and had two bull sharks of 100 and 77 kgs, while a couple of days before White Bear had tagged two giant trevally around 35 and 40 kgs, then released a sail and weighed a 21 kg giant trevally the next day with Michael Weaver fishing, so a good variety of fish around the Banks.

At Malindi, boats have also been short of clients, although Neptune found 300 kgs of good sized tuna and a sailfish on Monday, following up with a 90kg shark and half a dozen big tuna on Wednesday. With the weather improving and warming up, the strong winds of recent weeks moderating and the  Malindi Herbie Paul Festival approaching in a couple of weeks, we should see more trips out and bigger catches of the main species. If the black marlin remain around Watamu it is always interesting to see some anglers putting their faith in live baits on the Watamu Banks, while others go for good scores of sailfish in the Malindi waters - it is always an exhilarating prospect to pull a 250 kg marlin out late on the second day to clinch the winning spot, and it has happened before!

At Shimoni, Pat Hemphill in Broadbill did three trips, finding quite a lot of yellowfin around, but they proved hard to catch in the bright, calm and sunny conditions prevailing there, but a good mako shark around 100 kgs was released and perhaps the bigger tuna will reach there soon, while with tuna around there is always the prospect of some good blue marlin as used to be the case in October.