More boats have been going out this week, but with strong winds making for rough seas many do short days, mornings only, which keeps the score down, particularly for marlin which tend to come up better in the afternoon. Only two marlin were caught last week, Ol Jogi tagging a black estimated at 120kgs caught by Martin Taylor at the beginning of the week and Tarka finding one of 108kgs a few days later, but sailfish and mixed bags of wahoo, yellowfin and kingfish have been the norm. Mid-September is the time when the winds should moderate and the seas calm down, after which the billfish tended to move away from the Banks, but this seems delayed this year, no doubt due to an El Nino, a La Nina or some other vagary in the weather! Seastorm had a couple of sail for a Russian team, and White Bear had found the wahoo the previous day catching seven as well as a couple of sail, while Ol Jogi had to be content with a pair of sharks along with eight yellowfin and a wahoo. On the Banks, the sail, the wahoo and the tuna are usually in different areas and come up at different times, so one's bag largely depends on where one fishes at particular times - this is where the skippers skills are important! Contagious and Castle Lager are both large catamarans run by South African teams and both have been catching a single sailfish on most of their outings, while skipper Rob Hellier in his Unreel, who knows these waters better than most, also just found that one sailfish, but also a shark and a giant trevally, with all these fish being released. Earlier in the week, Neptune from Malindi was fishing the Banks in search of marlin. but had no luck with these but did catch five sail and lose several more, but a few days later with the winds increasing, they found a single sail plus a couple of wahoo, two kingfish and half a dozen yellowfin. The previous day Tina also found four sail, a giant trevally and a couple of dogtooth tuna, the latter rare in our waters although these are targeted further south in Tanzania, where some world records have been caught, recently by deep jigging. Interesting to note the Kenya record is a fish of 86.9 kgs, caught at Shimoni, while specimens over 100 kgs have been caught in Mauritius, very impressive fish! Neptune tried off Malindi and found some bigger yellowfin, two of 24kgs, but when they were due to go further north to Ziwaiyu, where fishing has been good at this time in recent years, the waters proved too rough so that trip will have to wait. The Malindi October Festival, now named the Herbie Paul International, will be fished on Sat/Sun 23rd&24th October. Kindly sponsored by MH Joinery Products, PLC, of UK, there will be an impressive array of prizes and a good entry is expected, so this will be a good chance to meet up with old fishing friends. The light line tournament, the Churchill Trophy will be on the Friday 22nd October, and with the sailfish expected to have turned on by then this is always a popular fixture both with overseas fishermen and upcountry anglers, so book now!