Tournaments and Billfish make the news

The tournament season is upon us now, and today sees the Morson Cup followed tomorrow by the Churchill Cup, fished out from Malindi. These are both light line formula competitions, fished by those enthusiasts who like to exercise their skills with the sewing thread lines, with breaking strains of 4 kg or so although up to 10 kg line is allowed.

The points value of the catch is then divided by the breaking strain of the line on which it is caught, and generally multiplied by 100 to bring it to a more impressive sounding figure, but, as even the less qualified mathematician can deduce, this gives a huge advantage to the pundit with the thinnest line - if he or she can avoid breaking the line! Ay, there's the rub!

The following weekend comes the CMC Malindi Festival, the two day competition which is the oldest along the coast, having started in 1959. I wonder how many of those pioneer anglers are still around?

This year, the tournament has the honour of being one of the qualifying tournaments for the prestigious Rolex/IGFA International Tournament, to which only the winner of about 100 tournaments from all over the world can be invited. It is held in Cabo San Lucas annually, and the galaxy of piscatorial talent makes it one of the world's top tournaments. What a boost if a Kenya team could achieve there!

There are plenty of sailfish around, but most of them have been caught far north from Ngomeni, and if last years rules are followed, this is outside the 20 mile radius from Malindi prescribed for the boats, a rule wisely designed to level the playing field for all the boats, particularly the smaller private boats which tournaments are working hard to encourage to enter.

Recent years have seen some big fast boats fishing out of Ngomeni and finding huge shoals of sail far north, while in previous years these boats steamed off to the North Kenya Banks, fifty miles out, and returned with a large tonnage of tuna! Boat owners are probably secretly relieved as these long off shore trips produce fuel bills greater than the charter fee!

Nor does it always come off, a few years back I fished on what was then the fastest boat in the fleet, but after catching four small tuna on arrival at the North Kenya Banks nothing more was seen out there! But at least we weren't crowded by the other boats!!

In late September, the water was often green, with strange cold water currents affecting the fishing and putting fish down. If the water turned blue, the fishing improved, but then the green would return and down the fish would go. There were black marlin on the Banks, Neil Dickson tagging a good fish of 200 kgs on Eclare. Tarka, with Phil Revett, and White Bear, also tagged marlin.

John Prior had some good days on Ol Jogi with his friends all out from UK, following a marlin one trip with two sharks, a bull of160 kgs and a silvertip of 120 kgs, then another day with three sail and a mixed bag of tuna, kingfish and a giant trevally.

Nearer the end of the month, Neptune had two successful days with eight sail each, north from Ngomeni; then a day on the NKB where they found big yellowfin, two of 61 and 51 kgs being notable.

These trips often report seeing large commercial vessels far out, longliners and purse seiners, presumably. Kenya authorities are reported to have licensed up to two hundred such vessels, working on the assumption that they will be fishing there anyway, so give them a licence and collect annual fees. This is a worrying trend - the reason they are in the Indian Ocean is that they have cleaned out all the fish in most other areas of the world nearer their home countries, mostly the Far East and the EU. Two broadbill swordfish, tagged by sportfishers near Malindi, were recaptured by a Spanish longliner working out of Mombasa, which tells its own tale.

Early September saw some tuna on the NKB, and sailfish closer in, but the water colour varied and the fishing likewise. Alleycat, having tried a few days from Ngomeni with little success, fished home to Watamu and tagged a very big striped marlin, estimated at 85 kgs, in the Canyon, six miles from home!

An interesting variant of normal techniques was the attempting on Alleycat to catch giant trevally on live bait, but using flyrods! Not in accordance with fly rod rules, of course, but a lot of fun for the fishermen when a 25 kgs GT was fought to the boat and tagged, with the rods strained to the limit and an exploding reel!

The sailfish then reappeared north of Ngomeni, and Neptune followed a day catching eleven with one of those never to be forgotten experiences when everything goes right, and tagged seventeen sailfish! A few days later, the fish had moved again, out to cleaner deep water, but Eclare and Neptune both found them, with 10 and 11 respectively. At this time, Snowgoose was fishing outside the Boiling Pot, and tagged a nice marlin of 120 kgs, which gave an exciting aerial display captured on video - what a much better trophy than a photo of a corpse on the gantry!

At Watamu, the Banks was producing wahoo, giant trevally and yellowfin, but marlin seem scarce now, though whether they have moved on or will reappear we shall have to see.