The north-east wind, the kaskazi, has been blowing hard later in the morning and during the afternoon for a couple of days now, and this seasonal change, although overdue, has served to liven up the fishing, albeit a bit late for some of the recent South African competitions.

The Capt Morgan Rum tournament at Hemingways finished with 79 sailfish and 5 marlin caught, all the fish being released. While twenty sail were caught the fourth day, the last day only yielded six, but the anglers were thrilled to catch marlin, five in all as these had not featured in previous tournaments.

John Harvey, a previous winner, again took top spot with his five sail while Philip Heyns was second and Frik van Zyl third in the individual scores, and the Harvey team, with Heather, Arthur Hills and Michael Butt, won overall. The teams changed boats daily, and the boat with the best overall score was Seastorm, skippered by Steve Webb, with Tarka second and Black Widow third.

The Big Game Fishing Club of Germany tournament in Malindi ran for six days, and while one or two sail per boat-day was average for the week, the team on Snark had a thrilling day with six sail, and all the boats had small fish, tunny and wahoo. Messrs Heisse and Sputek came with the same group, though not in the competition and fished eight days on Neptune - they caught a sail on fly, as well as seven on conventional tackle and had a lot of fun.

Marlin have featured in recent catches, with boats live baiting around the Banks, and some good fish have been caught. Alleycat and Neptune both released black marlin around the 150 kg mark, while earlier Albatross released one guessed at 220 kgs, and some bigger fish have been on the lines, so it looks as if this month could be good for the Watamu Banks area. With sailfish more difficult than in recent years, skippers are more inclined to spend their days baiting for these big marlin, while the anglers who are lucky enough to catch fish of 200 kgs and more remember this achievement when dozens of sailfish are long forgotten!

Interestingly, there have also been several striped marlin caught in shallower water close in to shore, as these fish usually stay in the deep far offshore, in the Rips and North Kenya Banks. These fish take lures and sailfish baits, as opposed to the live baits that the bigger black marlin fancy, and are more colourful and active, giving a great fight on the lighter tackle. There have been several strikes from striped marlin further out in the Rips in the last few days, and activity should increase with the north wind blowing up the Rips to show well.

At Mtwapa, the annual Eye Go Fishing tournament was held at the La Marina restaurantand was won by Barrie and Cathey Hilton fishing on Delta, with two sailfish, Barry also winning the Parry Memorial Trophy catching the first sailfish in the morning. Nala came second fished by H Rawal, Vikash Shah and Peter Mtemi, while Kipapa was third with the team of Howard and Sue Lawrence-Brown and Nigel MacKenzie in the professional stream. The amateur stream was headed by Tara, with Max Donner (Junior), Phil Gschwend and Florian Schollinger, while Flycatcher, fished by John Webb, Karl Jennings and Dave Williamson was the runner-up. The hard luck story went to Anne Taylor who fought a black marlin estimated at 100 kgs for nearly an hour, before the line, which had got wrapped round it's bill, parted - all that hard work for nothing except sore muscles!