On Wednesday 25th August when regular visitor from Guernsey in the Channel Islands UK, Mark Lempriére came on board Kamara II he jokingly said that the reason that he was fishing with me in August was in the hope of catching a SPEARFISH.

Now, spearfish are not a common species anywhere and many captains have never even seen one let alone caught one to order. My father, Pat who has fished longer than anyone else in Kenya has never seen a spearfish! I have been very lucky, catching them on both Kamara and Kamara II.

Before 9am we had had a strike from what we think was a sailfish but we are now questioning that. The conditions were flat calm, just a slight breeze, overcast with occasional rain showers passing through. Pretty perfect really for this time of the year. Suddenly the Tiagra 80 started to howl and we leapt in action clearing lines, whilst all the time staring out the back in the hope of catching sight of some enormous marlin jumping out. But, nothing jumped and Mark climbed in to the fighting chair with the rod. The fish was there but coming steadily rather out muscled by the 80. We thought it was wahoo but as it came near I saw the brilliant blue and the mini sail and realised that we had a spearfish. Only a small one, but a spear all the same and Mark was ecstatic as you can imagine.

No sooner had we finished setting up the spread when another strike occurred. This one was on a 50 and this time the fish jumped clear and incredibly we realised that this was another spearfish. Mark had travelled to Hawaii in search of a spearfish only to miss out and here in Shimoni he catches two within 20 min of each other. Incredible!

We were not finished though and 30 min later Hamisi saw a marlin tailing. It came in fast and took a Black Bart Breakfast off the short rigger jumped and threw the hook. I thought that was it, he wouldn’t come back but straight away he took the Black Bart 1656 and hooked up, a stripey. Not bad for August a striped marlin and 2 shortbilled spearfish.

Broadbill, who was also out had seen a mako shark but had no bait to offer it. A few days later I was out again with Mark and we saw another mako that would not take the bait. However, we did hook a small blue marlin on the way home that unfortunately came unhooked. Two days later I took a client out on Broadbill and we lost another blue marlin. much the same size but again it came off after about 10 min.

Great to see these marlins here and the makos but no sign of the really big tunas yet. We have had some of about 14-15 kg but nothing bigger. Conditions look good though and plenty of skipjack – marlin fodder!

On 8th April, Mr. Rottner and his family from Austria had gone out for a day’s fishing on Broadbill. Mr. Rottner’s father, Rudi used to fish with us regularly during the 1980’s and sadly passed away in 1994. His son, having heard so many stories from his father decided that he must come and fish at least one time with the people that gave his father so much pleasure.

Shortly after midday a huge blue marlin pounced on the green Pakula Rat trolled on the 50-lb curved butt rod off the long centre rigger. It took off at great speed peeling line off at an alarming rate without breaking the surface before suddenly jumped right close behind the transom. One of the other lines had become tangled in the marlin’s line and sadly the 50-lb line bust. This huge fish that Usama estimates to be between 6-700 lb continued jumping for many minutes trying to throw the hook perhaps as the lure kept beating against her sides much as a jockey uses a whip galvanizing the marlin to greater speeds. The blue marlin is a most magnificent creature and we all hope that she was able to shed the hook and continue on her journey BUT THERE ARE BIG MARLIN IN THE PEMBA CHANNEL, TOO.

I hope that all of you had as good an Easter as I did. First of all we had the KASA annual dinner on Saturday 3rd April at Ocean Sports Hotel, Watamu. KASA or Kenya Association of Sea Anglers as it is known in full the body that represents all saltwater sport fishermen in Kenya. KASA maintains a data base of all the Kenya saltwater angling records and is affiliated to the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) and the Game Fish Union of Africa (GFUA). KASA has many other very important functions including representing anglers’ concerns with the Kenya Government, setting a code for the way that, in particular charter operators in Kenya should conduct their affairs plus the association works hand in hand with the African Billfish Foundation (ABF at http://www.africanbillfish.org) to manage the billfish tagging programme. (more…)

Kamara II fished by myself and Raymond Matiba entered the Friends of Kenya Fishing Tournament run out of Hemingways Resort in Watamu. This is pretty much an Extended Combo, a marathon 33 hours of non-stop fishing. The fishing in the Pemba Channel has remained hot throughout and the monsoon is only changing now as I write this report 2/3s of the way through March. As you will see there have been some big fish hit in the channel by our boats this month. Once again the Pemba Channel has demonstrated that it can produce some monsters of the deep. (more…)

Once again apologies for not posting these fishing reports more promptly. As you will see I was away from Shimoni during this period and have been really busy since my return.

During this period Pat was away in Kilifi participating in the Kilifi Classic Fishing Tournament. This is one of the oldest tournaments in Kenya and has always been very popular. For those of you who may not know where Kilifi is, it is situated on a very deep, narrow creek north of Mombasa and just to the south of Watamu. I was also fishing up north, not in the tournament but further north at Malindi and Lamu. (more…)

There has been a bit of a change in the weather bringing some “kusi” or southeast winds for the past 3 days that has upset the fishing somewhat. However, it has not all been doom and gloom and some nice fish have been caught. There are a lot of bait fish out in the Pemba Channel with skipjack, yellowfin, frigate mackerel and loads of flying fish and as I always say you cannot have a good restaurant without patrons to feed in it! Broadbill has gone up to Kilifi to fish the Kilifi Classic Tournament, a long-standing and very popular competition. Kamara II departs tomorrow for the north for a safari so I thought that I should update you all before I leave, so here goes. The forecast is for the wind to swing back in to the NE tomorrow so let us hope that the fishing picks up again with it. (more…)

Monday 15th February – All 3 Shimoni boats out today, I had my future son-in-law Christopher, his brother Stephen and his dad Charlie out on Kamara II. They all 3 work together in the same contract farming business in Oxfordshire but none of them had done much, if any fishing before. Broadbill went round to Funzi Keys to pick up Phil Levett from the UK for a day’s fishing. (more…)