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.
Monday 22nd February – There were 4 boats out together with Inca and it was very calm, northeast wind but virtually no current flowing so that the rips were not showing at all. Kamara II was out with a father and son team from Sweden, Goran and Fredrik Holm neither of whom had ever caught a marlin. Soon after the 10am radio call Fredrik hooked up with a striped marlin on a 30-lb line that really gave him a hard fight. I think that it was wrapped in the leader and for a while I was convinced that it must be dead since we were just planing the fish up from the depths and it appeared not to be doing anything. But, after some time it suddenly changed direction and I think came unwrapped and thereafter fought more normally. It took 1hr 10 min to bring it to boatside but it was perfectly healthy and swam away now with an orange tag in its shoulder muscle. With so little wind it was really hot playing that fish and poor Fredrik having just arrived out from winter was suffering but he did really well.
Whilst we were still busy with Fredrik’s fish Nicolas Stekke from Belgium tagged his first marlin, a stripey from Broadbill. On Kamara II we were still putting the lines back out after releasing our stripey when a very nice blue marlin appeared behind the starboard short rigger, took and then proceeded to do what blues do best. They are such a special fish, putting 100% effort in to the fight from the outset and the power and speed is something to behold. When you have seen it you will never forget it and just crave for more. This fish, about 350-lb went off greyhounding across the ocean peeling line off the reel and unless the helmsman is quick to react you will be spooled for sure. Hamisi had Kamara II round fast and running parallel to the marlin whilst Goran tried to retrieve line as best he could. After just 20 min we had it very close to the boat but it took off again, down this time. With the marlin tired from such a sprint Goran was able to force her up until I was able to grab the leader and the tag was nicely placed in the shoulder by Suleiman. It was a beautiful fish and what a fish to catch first up!
The blue was very tired and I was really concerned that she might die on us next to the boat if we took too long. The hook kept turning her over on to her back so I used the teaser rope to tie a couple of half hitches round the end of the bill, removed the hook and let her out to the end of the rope. I have found that the normal method of swimming a marlin to revive it by holding it by the bill next to the boat not that satisfactory. I feel that perhaps because of the proximity of the boat and because the water at the surface has little oxygen that they don’t recover that well. I have found it far better is to use a thin rope tied to the tip of the bill to get the fish well below the wash so allowing the fish to recover much better and faster. Certainly this one revived very quickly and after 5 min or so she was ready to swim on her way hopefully to grow bigger and make many more blue marlins.
Inca tagged a stripey at 1pm and White Otter lost a nice blue marlin at 2pm that came off. Broadbill found a striped marlin tailing soon after 2pm that came in and had a go at 3 different lures but they couldn’t hook up with it. Inca had a strike from a stripey and tagged a sailie at 3pm and we missed a sail on our way in that would have given us our grand slam.
Tuesday 23rd February – Just Broadbill and White Otter out today and Inca headed back to Mombasa. No marlin were seen today and Broadbill tagged 2 sails with Goran and Fredrik getting 1 each.
Wednesday 24th February – Only Broadbill and White Otter and very little showing at all. Pat reported seeing 6 or 7 sails free jumping off Funzi in the morning and found 1 tailing but it refused to come in. Very calm and hot today with the wind out of the southwest all morning until 2pm when it very slowly came round in to the north but hardly even a breeze. Broadbill found a big school of skipjack off the top end of the Pemba Bank and put 1 on live for a hour only for a wahoo to chop its tail off. White Otter rose a nice black marlin but it would not take.
Thursday 25th February – Only Kamara II out with Phil Lever and young Alessandro Torriani from Funzi Keys. It was flat calm and hot with the wind mostly in the SW and the current is flowing south. But there were quite a few sailfish around that were coming up in to the spread just knocking a lure down and pushing off. We rose 1 striped marlin that did the same thing and then on the way in had a double header of sails managing to tag both of them.
Friday 26th February – Kamara II was out with Svend Christensen from Denmark and Broadbill with Salim Manji, his son Imran and a friend of his set off for Kilifi to enter the Kilifi Classic Tournament. Again flat calm, very hot with a very light SE wind. In the afternoon I noticed that the current was now flowing slowly north again, which is much better. We lost a sail in the morning that came off and missed a couple more later otherwise just getting 4 dorado. Broadbill got 1 sailfish on their way up.
Saturday 27th February – Kamara II and White Otter out from Shimoni with Broadbill fishing out of Kilifi. Again very calm, wind SE and a lot of big rain storms coming off Pemba Island and going N towards Mombasa. Svend Christensen tagged a striped marlin from Kamara II on 30-lb line in the afternoon and White Otter rose a stripey in the morning off Chale but did not get any billfish.
Broadbill tagged 3 sailfish in the Kilifi Classic placing them in to 6th place at the end of the 1st day behind Albatros, Unreal, Delta, Eclare and Simba. Only 2 marlin were caught today in the competition a black on Albatros and a stripey on Unreal.
I’ll update you on how the 2nd day goes and my safari to North Kenya when I return.
