Billfish move on as season slows

April Newsletter No.4: 6/4/2009 courtesy of Captain Andy's

With April upon us the main fishing season will draw to a close soon, as, despite the wind not being able to make up it's mind what it is going to do, the billfish, the marlin and the sail, seem to have gone on their way in their annual migration. The wind appeared to have changed into the south, and there was a shower of rain last weekend, but then it settled back east and yesterday was blowing firmly from the north-east again.

But the signals are there,and at Watamu only one sail and no marlin have been caught in the last week, with a similar situation at Malindi. Neptune, however, fishing up to the North Kenya Banks had more action, finding a black marlin and a sail at the beginning of the week on their way to Lamu. Returning, they had a successful night with two broadbill released, one a fine fish around 100 kgs, then live baiting the next morning they released three black marlin and a sail before returning to base, a very successful trip for Peter Holdsworth. Shows that there are usually some fish somewhere – the problem is locating them!

But there are still plenty of small fish to keep anglers busy, and a day with tuna, dorado and wahoo is fine for the passing tourist, but clients are hard to find now although there should be more locals down for the Easter holiday. Adam Ogden has been keeping his family busy in his boat Tengesi, with five dorado, two wahoo and three yellowfin as a typical day, while the Cooper family from UK out in Ol Jogi, had a very big yellowfin at 60 kgs, plus a pile of smaller ones with dorado as well.

Hands-on fishing in his Sesse canoe Samvuke is what James Adcock specialises in, very successfully as a day for Peter Cooper showed with a dozen yellowfin and the same number of dorado, or felusi as they are called locally. Fine fighting fish on light tackle, and good eating too.Night trips still yield broadbill, and Castle Lager weighed a very big one at 126kg, bigger than the Kenya record. These are generally judged to be the strongest and hardest fighting fish in the ocean, with many stories of hook-ups at night where the reel ran out of line and the huge fish disappeared over the horizon. With the world record standing over 500kgs, imagine how that would fight!

An incredible story from the Friends of Kenya tournament three weeks ago when the anglers on Lascar, which eventually finished second, saw a strike from a striped marlin race line off the reel only for the line to break. Twenty minutes later, a second strike resulted in a hook-up which was more successful, and a striped marlin was fought to the boat, where it was seen the fish had a broken line wrapped round the body and a lure in it's mouth. Yes, it was the fish they had broken off earlier, and after the fish was released the lure was recovered and put up again on the outrigger. A couple of hours later, another strike on that same lure resulted in a blue marlin fought to the boat and released – the fish that won them the prize!

At Watamu, there will be an Easter Saturday competition at Ocean Sports, with the emphasis on ladies and youngsters fishing. At Kilifi, the annual Easter Frolic is a fun day with most of the local boats fishing families on Easter Sunday – with the present calm weather likely to hold, and plenty of yellowfin, dorado and wahoo around, these should provide an opportunity for holidaymakers to have fun and fill the freezers for the off season!