Week ending Thurs 14th -

A definite change in the weather in the Malindi/Watamu area, with calmer days and warmer breezes making for ideal fishing weather, has improved prospects for anglers, and indeed, not before time as the strong winds have persisted much longer than normal while the rain seems to have dried up with no showers in the last three weeks. The forecast is for diminished short rains this season, whereas last year there was heavy rain in the second half of October which brought dirty water down the rivers, always bad for fishing.

Next weekend sees the annual Malindi Herbie Paul Festival, the oldest tournament along the coast which has been fished for over fifty years now. Sponsored by an old friend and client of Herbie's, Mike Tracey of MH Joinery in UK with a great range of prizes, the fishing promises to be just turning on at the right moment, and with sailfish being caught off Malindi with boats finding three or four a day now, and a variety of school and large yellowfin tuna widely spread at both Watamu and Malindi, there should be plenty of action, and a good entry is expected with all the regular teams coming. The Festival is preceded on Friday by the Morson Cup, a light tackle formula competition, which could prove interesting if some of the teams want to try for the tuna instead of the traditional sailfish.

Clueless out from Malindi had a good morning, releasing a black marlin and four sail, while a group from Island Safaris in South Africa had a good start with Tina catching a black marlin and four sail, Eclare another black and Neptune three sail by noon on their first day last Sunday. Sailfishing is far more interesting when the odd black marlin keeps popping up around the sailfish shoals, and although mainly smaller fish, they fight well on the sail tackle as when live baiting for marlin most boats use very heavy tackle.

At Watamu, boats have a similar problem to Malindi with few clients, but if one can find these big tuna it is a good opportunity to stock up on supplies of sashimi! Alleycat continued with her good catches, with eight yellowfin in the 20-30 kgs range and some smaller ones and Albatross had a couple of sail as well as five big tunny. Castle Lager released a striped marlin caught on the Banks, and found a bull shark of 64 kgs as well, and a next day they tagged a sailfish.

Hemingways boats have been finding the big tunny, with Ol Jogi catching fifteen one day, sixteen next day and tagging a sail as well,  and seven on the third day, all averaging about the twenty kg mark. After the amazing tuna years when the mantis prawns were swarming everywhere, the tuna fishing went down but the improvement in the last two seasons could be due to less commercial fishing in this side of the Indian ocean due to the piracy threat.