Namibians and South Africans vie for sailfish at Malindi

Teams of anglers from Namibia and South Africa had fishing fun at Malindi in the 'Malindi Madness' Tournament, where six teams, twenty fishermen in all, rotated between six boats for four days. With 54 sailfish being caught in total, everyone had shots at fish, but it was the three boats who fished out of Ngomeni which scored best. The other three boats went out from Malindi daily, the first two days trying the Watamu Banks for tuna and shark, as the sail were hard to find in that area, but up at Ngomeni the sail were feeding freely, and Tarka, with 14 sail, was the top scoring boat, followed by Neptune with 13 and Eclare with 12, the latter boat finding nine sail for the best daily total.

Ol Jogi, from Hemingways, has been stationed up at Ngomeni for a few days, and had successful fishing there, catching 20 sail in four trips, while down south on the Banks, two days of heavy rain turned the yellowfin on, and Castle Lager had twenty six one day and twenty four another. There were sail in this area, White Bear finding five one day, and Simba four, while Mark Jury, out from England had put his boat Tega into the water and scored three sail on the maiden voyage - a good omen for the Malindi Festival next weekend..

STOP PRESS - The CMC sponsored Malindi Festival was fished over the weekend of 23rd/24th Oct, and was won by Eclare, with the team of Robert Duff, Ian Fenton and Batian Craig. Second was Ol Jogi, with P. Medley, Gai Cullen and Rob Hellier, while Instedda with the Moosa family won the private boat competition. The winner had eleven sail over two days, and we will cover this tournament in full when all the details are available.

On the Friday, Steve Riddles and Howard Lawrence-Brown won the light line Churchill Cup, with five sail and a pair of yellowfin on six kg line.

Your scribe is off on a short holiday for a fortnight, but Erica in the office will be keeping the news flowing.