Have the marlin gone?

Last Monday the kusi, the south-east wind, started to blow gusts of 30 knots in the afternoon, and the few boats that were out fishing on what had been a pleasant morning soon went back to harbour! Next morning, a gentle breeze off the land, the umande, was rippling a placid ocean, and small dugout canoes were fishing well outside the line of tiny wavelets outlining in white the edge of the reef! Strange weather!

But reports from the boats do not include strikes from marlin this last week, so we must assume these fish have moved away to follow their annual migration paths. As ninety percent of the marlin caught by sport fishers are released, we hope they will be back again next year.

But will they? With the authorities licensing more and more foreign vessels, purse seiners and longliners to fish in our waters, to decimate fish stocks and plunder the resource, without proper research and controls, and oblivious to falling stocks, one can only hope for the best.

This increased licensing of commercial fishing vessels is sometimes justified by saying that they are already working off our shores, as Kenya does not have the means to patrol and control the EEZ, up to 200 nautical miles out, so we might as well benefit from the licence fees. The Fisheries Dept, with a $20,000 income from each of about fifty vessels, obviously benefits.

But sport fishermen have very real fears that these vessels with their modern technology, can seriously reduce stocks of various fish species to an unsustainable level, where in future it will be impossible to catch the sailfish, marlin and tuna on which the sport fishing industry is based.

With surveys in other parts of the world that have similar sport fishing industries to ours having shown that one live billfish is worth ten times as much to the economy as one dead one in a commercial vessels hold, the fishing authorities must listen to protests at this increased assault on our fish stocks.

But will they?

Malindi boats have been baiting in the Banks area, with Eclare catching six giant trevally and a tiger shark around 320 kgs, all released, while Neptune has had several good days, catching a variety of species including sharks, trevally, kingfish, dorado, tuna and bonito, all on one day, exciting fishing for the clients, and especially for those families with kids who have to be kept interested out at sea! Another day Neptune had a sailfish, while Eclare, fished by Bob Hammond from Kilifi and family on a trip won in the KASA raffle last year, released a nice 30 kg trevally and caught wahoo, kingfish and dorado as well.

Fishing for tiger sharks, Snark had three strikes, but lost them all, while AlleyCat had a similar story, showing it is not all that easy!

B’s Nest from Hemingways had a good day on Monday with the May family from Devon in UK, when they released two sailfish, as well as catching nine dorado and a wahoo, and Grant Stephenson had three dorado out in his own boat, Bila Shaka, which he built himself, although he did not care to test it in the afternoon gale! The same day, Castle Lager tagged a sail, so perhaps we will have a late run of sailfish at Watamu running into May.

Ol Jogi has been out several times, with catches of dorado, kingfish, wahoo and yellowfin, and a couple of giant trevally released another day, so there are still plenty of fish around to compensate for the missing marlin.