Marlin are ‘flavour of the month’ for March

There is an impression amongst regular fishermen that November to February are the months when the fish run best in Kenya. This, of course, is true for sailfish, although September and October are normally prime time for yellowfin tuna, but marlin time is more difficult to define.

Traditionally, the Watamu Banks produce black marlin from late July to September, and again from December to March, while the offshore area of the Rips and North Kenya Banks schedule December to March, when the monsoon winds change, as the best period for striped marlin, and this applies also to the Pemba Channel.

But in all these areas, March has the reputation for raising the biggest fish, the blacks and blues, but this is often qualified as the first half of March. But this year, marlin have been running late, with all areas finding these fish right through the month, and the Watamu Banks and Ngomeni/Malindi area has been producing black marlin in quantities not seen for years!

There have been plenty of black marlin around, and some stripeys too, in the waters ranging from the North Kenya Banks, through Ngomeni, Malindi and Watamu, both close in and in the Rips twenty miles out, throughout the month of March. These have been small, in the 100 kg range mainly, although some good fish have been reported, jumping on the lines!

The Moosa family, starting from Watamu in their boat Instedda and fishing down in the Tamarind Village Tournament in Mombasa, found a striped marlin, a sail and eight dorado to win the competition with 683 points. This annual competition, sponsored by Seaforth Shipping, has been running for a few years now, and this was the best yet with twenty entries.

Second was another amateur boat, JimGin, Capt Andy himself fishing, also starting from Watamu, with a sail, six dorado, five wahoo, a kingfish and a yellowfin for 321 pts, while third was Sasumai, top in the professional stream, scoring 301 pts for eight dorado and a wahoo. One of their dorado, caught by 14 year-old Perry Wright, weighed 20 kgs, a very big specimen which won him the species prize - one this size fights twice as hard as a similar sailfish!

Maverick was second in the professional stream, 205 pts, and Inca third, 162 pts, while Bado was third in the amateur stream with 136 pts, catching 14 dorado which are plentiful in the Mombasa area now, and will work their way up the coast soon.

It is good to get fishing news from Mtwapa, as they modestly tend to keep their achievements to themselves down there! Behind most fishing captains lurks someone who does all the work, so let Sue Lawrence-Brown, whose husband Howard runs his fishing business out of Mtwapa, tell her story;---

“Sunday 14th March, I went out fishing with Howard which is certainly the first time for me this season as I am usually driving the desk and the computer 6 days a week. On this particular Sunday we decided to enter the Moorings "Friendly" Fishing Competition and we were joined by Jerome Jones of Southern Cross Safaris, Mombasa Office, as our guest. The morning started off with a good sized tuna for Jerome which reluctantly decided it did not want to be "bagged" and got off at the crucial point. It obviously knew that Howard wanted to live bait and made the decision for him! Later on in the morning we had a sailfish strike which lasted a few seconds before deciding to window shop some more. Towards early afternoon another strike and as luck would have it, it was my turn. I was rewarded with a very good sized sailfish of about 30 kg which was brought to the back of the boat and released. I can't tell you how overjoyed I was as it was my first sailfish after 14 years in the sports fishing business but never actually having the pleasure or the experience of hooking up to one of these beautiful creatures. Later in the afternoon we had a pack attack strike of 5 yellow fin where Jerome, Howard and myself were on the rods bringing in what we could. We had 4 tuna bagged out of the 5. Out of 11 boats, we came 5th overall and I managed to win the Ladies prize for the only Sailfish and the heaviest fish by a lady angler. Jerome won the prize for the heaviest yellow fin. It was a really fun day and a memorable one for me.

At the Kilifi Classic Competition, Benjie Bowles won the prize for a day's fishing on KIPAPA, which he took up on Saturday 20th March along with Snoo Colville and Bob and Veronica Hammond as his guests. Their day started off slowly with a couple of small fish and then later in the day had a double strike of striped marlin. Both Benjie and Bob were well rewarded with one each weighing about 60 - 75 kgs, duly released. Added to this a couple of dorado and some torpedo fish in the bag and along comes a sailfish later in the afternoon which was hooked by Bob and released. A very happy and delighted anglers at the end of the day.”

What a great story, thanks, Sue!

From Malindi, Kingfisher boats have had good fishing, Neptune on an overnight to the NKB missing a stripey, four broadbill and then four more stripey strikes, before their luck changed to return with a black marlin and four sail tagged! Next day they found a stripey out of Ngomeni, while Eclare and Snark have also had black marlin.

At Watamu, Ron Darnborough in Chinook caught a striped marlin on his usual Sunday morning outing, giving him a suitable thirst for the next item on the Sunday agenda! - while Castle Lager earlier found two hammerhead sharks. Alleycat caught nine wahoo after finding no billfish on the Rips, despite their stripey and two sail the previous day, and JimGin had a black, and a dozen assorted dorado, wahoo and yellowfin, in the Rips.

White Bear started the week with a stripey and a sail for David Farrer, and next day had a sail and a 22kg dorado, a fine specimen this. Eddy Ryan boated a 64kg yellowfin on Tega, tho’ there are not many of these big tuna around now, and all the boats have had wahoo, sail and dorado, so good fishing all round.

Yesterday, Thursday, saw Peter Gulotta taking a day off from maintaining Hemingways, and tagging a 350 lb black marlin on 50lb line with sailfish tackle, a fine achievement, as the marlin went down behind the boat and stayed there, always a difficult situation for the skipper as they stick down deep, right under the props, and feel like a rhino on the end! Both AlleyCat and Pussycat had black marlin on their trips a day or two previously.

With the wind veering north-east one day and south-east the next, it is difficult to predict the future fishing, but with these marlin coming in every day the present looks bright!