Marlin All Around the Rips - Will the Delamere Trophy find them?

We are seeing the best run of marlin in the Rips for many years, with boats returning with black, green but mostly blue flags every day, as well as sailfish - the influx of blue marlin is especially interesting, as captains cannot remember as many blues as there are out there now.

Mostly the blues are small, but some bigger ones have been caught, and we look forward to seeing if late February and early March will provide some really big blues - one boat that caught an 840 lb monster some years ago the same day played and lost another, close to the boat, estimated at almost twice that size!

This is all happening as we enter the serious tournament season, with the Delamere Trophy kicking off with a two-day event this coming weekend, the 28th/29th of January, fished out from Kilifi.

This has been for forty years one of the coast's most prestigious competitions, started in 1966 by the late Lady Delamere, and the splendid prizes are still sponsored today by her daughter, Deborah Colvile. The auction for the boats is a great social evening on the Friday, and boats can roar out from any port at 6.30 am on the Saturday. Guess where they will be heading!

The points system I criticised in the last newsletter was caused by a printing error in the brochure, and now a sail will have to weigh more that 40 kgs to score over its tagged weight, while tagged marlin will be equivalent to 100 kgs. The Mnarani Fishing Club has always been in the forefront of releasing billfish, so few will be seen on the scales, but if one is, it will be big!

This run of marlin in the Rips is an indication that the fishing pattern is returning to that considered normal a few years ago. The four year run of mantis prawns changed this pattern, bringing huge shoals of yellowfin tuna all along our shores, with enormous fish topping the 200 lb mark not uncommon.

Now that the prawns have gone, the tuna situation is back to normal, and the Rips are producing marlin and sail again, a big bonus for those fishing from Watamu, Malindi and Kilifi.

No one knows exactly what causes all these changes in fishing patterns, ocean currents, water temperatures, weather patterns like the El Nino and La Nina - probably a combination of them all. Baffling to scientists, but great news for fishermen if they bring the marlin in!

Catch of the week from Watamu, Clueless had a good day with two blues and two stripies for Peter Hofmann and Roland Weber, so that Friday 13th was not unlucky for them. And a week later, skipper Ali al Hirazi on B's Nest more than matched this with three blues, a stripey and a sailfish, amazing fishing on a rough windy day when the other boats found little!

Seyyida has been doing well lately with a black marlin estimated around 400 lbs being released, and another nearer the 500 lb mark a few days later, also released. The same boat had another day with two striped marlin, and Eclare from Malindi had a grand slam with one of each of the three marlin species, but could not boost their status to 'super' as both the sailfish they had on fell off!

Neptune next day had a blue and a black marlin and four sail, following that on the morrow with a blue and five sail, bettered perhaps by Eclare with a blue and a stripey and three sail. The list seems endless and almost all the boats come in with flags; from the combined Malindi/Watamu fleet there were 9 marlin and 7 sail one day at the beginning of the week, and 13 marlin in a day at the end of the week!

There is, naturally, always the odd day when a skipper creeps in rather after the other boats, with his empty outriggers a bit conspicuous in the mooring area! That's how fishing goes, of course, and most skippers after a good run can suffer from the 'Humpty Dumpty' effect!

Simba ran up to Lamu on a short seafari, and fishing only a few miles outside the island, they released two blue, a black and three striped marlin and five sail as well for a successful trip with Mark and George Allen, and Gray Cullen.

At Malindi, one boat inshore was playing a black marlin when their line was run over and cut by a trawler! Radio calls were ignored; perhaps this is the first instance on record of conservation by the trawling fraternity!

This totally destructive, indiscriminate method of killing fish, where huge metal beams drag over the bottom, scraping up and obliterating everything in their path, should be banned internationally; nor should their practice of throwing overboard ninety percent of their catch, dead, as 'trash' fish, to pollute the sea and our beaches, be tolerated.