The past ten days have seen the boats swinging at their moorings rather more often than is normal for this time of the year. However, for those that have ventured out there have been some good billfish catches, both marlin and sails. The wind has been variable, rather calmer than one might expect and in the past week has even blown from the ESE rather than the NE. Those few degrees make a huge difference to the fishing, believe it or not so we hope that from now on the wind will remain more settled. We start to get very busy from the middle of next week so let’s hope that the fish are waiting for us.

I have been very busy teaching in Mombasa since New Year but whilst I have been away Hamisi has been running Kamara II. As any of you who have fished with Hamisi over the past 20 years or more will know he is a very competent skipper and now that he has his skipper’s ticket I have no hesitation about letting him take the boat out whilst I am away. Suleimani Mchambi from Broadbill, the older of the two Suleimani’s usually joins my crew to help out. He also has his qualification as does Usama on Broadbill and they all take great pride in doing their job well. I shall be teaching again all of this coming week but will be back here fishing after that. (more…)

From all of us at Sea Adventures we’d like to wish you all a very happy 2013 with plenty of tight lines with nice big marlin jumping on the end. Normally the period between Christmas Day and New Year is a very busy one but 2012 must go down as probably the worst year on record. We only did two days in that period on 28th and 31st. The wind, as I write is now blowing strongly from the NE so this ought to bring the fish up and already there are signs of a good mixed bag with all types marlin showing and lots of sails again. (more…)

Greetings from Shimoni, and a very merry Christmas to you all.

The onset of the north-east monsoonal winds may have been late this year but once they did come it was like the proverbial switch being thrown. Even with the wind blowing from the NE for only an hour in early December the marlin were up in that short time. I am a marine biologist but I still find it hard to understand how that small shift in wind direction can make such a striking change in the fishing. We would normally expect the monsoon to change towards the end of November or first week December but this year it was not until about 10th December. The wind had continued to blow strongly from the south throughout November bringing with it heavy thunderstorms that mostly circuited Shimoni.

Since the wind has changed in to the NE the marlin fishing has been good when the boats are out. All of the Shimoni boats are catching and all three species of black, blue a striped marlin have been seen as well as sailfish. There is still plenty of availability both before and after the new year. (more…)

For much of the early part of this month the fishing was very disappointing at best. The water was spectacular but there appeared to be little life in it hence few predators. The weather was very changeable and there were not that many flying fish around, always a bad sign in my book.

However, it has all changed and we have ended this period with some incredible fishing. Its just unfortunate that we are not fishing enough days to be able to make the most of it.

I will always try to give you an honest report about the fishing so that if the fishing is bad I will say so. When you read fishing reports from around the world with the great fishing exploits of various skippers you need to ask yourself, are you being told how many days were fished without catching? Or, how many boats are working that piece of water so that in other words what is the catch rate of fish per boat fishing day? The Pemba Channel is a large area of water with only 3 boats working it regularly and in this season none of these boats have done anywhere near 100 days even. (more…)

This week was dominated by very changeable weather associated with a tropical storm over Madagascar. There are still plenty of fish around but they do not seem to appreciate the daily changes in the weather. Fish typically do not like change and also do not appear to like it when it is overcast.  Fussy devils!! But, there were some good catches as well as more big fish hit. The sailfish numbers this year have been incredible and I don’t think that I have ever seen so many as this year. What’s more there are more of them out in the deep water where we fish for marlin than close to shore where sails are more traditionally found. The wahoo have also started to come in and I am sure soon the dorado will start to appear. There have been very few thus far with many really small ones. (more…)

My sincere apologies for not publishing the report last week but just never appeared to have enough time. There were plenty of marlin and sailfish in the Pemba Channel during the week with some big marlin seen. Early in the week the weather was a bit unsettled, ultra calm and the fishing was hard work. But towards the end of the week our boats had some great fishing with plenty of billfishing action throughout the day. (more…)

We had some very good fishing at the start of the period but unfortunately both our boats have spent too much time swinging at their moorings. This was the result of a big cancellation that had absolutely nothing to do with perceived security concerns. White Otter has been fishing throughout and the area was also visited by Peter Darnborough and Ken Rodwell with their respective boats, Alley Cat and Delta.

A large tropical storm hit Madagascar earlier in the week but that has now dropped out the bottom of the Mozambique Channel and hence no longer a factor. The south flowing Somali Current has been forcing its way south against the north flowing East African Current bringing colder waters as far south as Mombasa. Marlin generally prefer the warmer water and the only area that has had warm water is the Pemba Channel. (more…)