There is no actual closing of the fishing season in Kenya in the ocean as such, but as April ends many hotels close for annual renovations, and with summer approaching in the northern hemisphere and the rainy season starting in Kenya (we hope!), not many tourists arrive to those hotels that remain open. So boat owners take their boats out of the water for an annual overhaul, and many engines are removed, stripped and rebuilt as one cannot afford breakdowns in the main season.

But the fish themselves remain active, and while the striped and blue marlin have moved on,  some sailfish generally remain all through the year, as does the occasional black marlin, and the Watamu Banks becomes the centre of fishing action for the next four or five months.

Before the wind changed into the south-east, Eclare had good fishing catching seven sailfish and missing a couple of striped marlin in the Rips with Bruno Fontana of Plan Hotels, while the next day Mark and Ming Beaver had a thrilling experience when a huge blue marlin hooked itself on the lightest rig out on 24kg line, then after some impressive jumps it turned and raced toward the boat before changing direction and jumping on the taut line, which proved no match for 350kgs of charging marlin - a sight like this brings anglers out again and again to test their luck!

There have been some yellowfin tuna on the Mountains, and Snowgoose caught five as well as releasing a sailfish, but one has to be there at the right time when the fish come up, while Albatross also caught a sailfish and Alleycat found a black marlin on the Banks.

Live bait is usually the way to go for black marlin in the Banks area, and Johnny Yakas, out in Shika had a nice black on a live bait for a while, but it came off. If one swims a bait on the Banks, one never knows what one might catch, from a huge black marlin to giant trevally, sharks, and even big kingfish, wahoo and barracuda, which all adds to the fun.

Ol Jogi also found tuna and three dorado, but the water is rather dirty and there is a tremendous amount of seaweed around, but strangely not many dorado this season, as these fish generally are plentiful when there is a lot of weed in the water. White Bear had a 17kg wahoo and seven tuna, but the wahoo seem to have moved on now, these are migratory fish, and there are runs of them twice a year, September-October and again in March-April, and the Banks is a famous wahoo area, with catches of over twenty fish an exciting experience.

This Saturday a family fishing tournament will be held in Mida Creek, sponsored by Ocean Sports, Bill Parkinson and Geoff Bell. Mainly aimed to give the younger ones some fishing fun, it runs from 2pm to 5.30pm and these inland waters are always calm and the kids really enjoy themselves.

At Shimoni fishing is also coming to and end, Kamara II has had a sailfish and some dorado, but it has been quiet otherwise.

This will be the last article for this season and we'll be back in August, let's hope with stories of a good run of black marlin on the Banks in July, when some of the early-bird boats will be back fishing from the beginning of that month.