Greetings from Shimoni,

Another fishing season has passed by and as we reflect we cannot help but be reminded by how unpredictable fish are. And a good thing too, in my opinion for if we knew what to expect it wouldn’t be nearly so much fun. It’s a shame that the big yellowfin tuna migration yet again failed to appear in 2009 but the sailfishing in December was outstanding, and the marlin fishing in January-February was pretty good too. In fact any season where a skipper breaches the 50 marlin mark has to be a good season. Despite a period in February where it appeared that the NE-monsoon would end prematurely the marlin fishing season actually continued well in to March. The sad part is that the number of days spent out on the water was well down on previous years perhaps a direct consequence of the global recession.

2009 also marked the end of an era as our neighbours, Pemba Channel Fishing Club downsized their fleet by selling off their two 33-ft Bertrams, Jasiri and Shuwari so that now only White Otter remains. Pemba Channel FC was of course built by Pat and Maia from scratch in 1963 and ran very successfully for 27 years before selling out to Peter and Sandra Ruysenaars. The positive from all of this is that we are now working much closer together than has been the case in the past.

We did a few days in May and June with Louis Geyer from South Africa releasing a beautiful shortbill spearfish from Kamara II on 25^th June 2009. In August there were already a number of striped marlin around with almost every trip resulting in at least one marlin strike and this continued throughout September. It is most unfortunate that the big yellowfin tuna have not been passing along our coast for some years now and although I am sure that they will return I hope that it is not too late for us. I am not convinced that their absence is as a result of excessive commercial fishing but much more likely has something to do with currents and water temperature. If it was because of over fishing then the commercial long line and purse seine fisheries would have collapsed long ago. But, if the tuna return, will we be out there? I hope so, but in 2009 our boats only did two days in September whereas back in the 1980’s and first part of the 1990’s it was easily as busy as February. May be in 2010 they will return and when the tuna are there so are the big marlin and mako sharks. The Pemba Channel had a reputation for large blue marlin that normally averaged between 4-500 lb particularly during September and October but even July and August produced a few.

We missed out on the Latham Island Tournament this year but the Kenya boats that went down cleaned up all the top spots. In October I took Kamara II to Malindi to meet up with Darren Baynton for a North Kenya safari. On the first day we ran out to the North Kenya Banks and although there were not many big yellowfin tuna out there we did pick up a striped marlin. The fishing off Kiwayu was rather disappointing this time around especially after the great fishing of previous years. There were lots of yellowfin tuna although not big ones and a few sailfish. We tried our luck at live baiting but without success. The water was rather dirty, which probably didn’t help but Kiwayu is still a stunning location to visit and when the fishing turns on it is incredible.

Dad and I fished the Herbie Paul Memorial Tournament, formerly known as the Malindi Festival. We acquitted ourselves pretty well I think managing to take 3^rd spot only missing out on 2^nd by a whisker. It was great fun though and a great party afterwards as well as great to catch up with so many old friends.

The fishing out of Shimoni remained quite good for marlin with stripies being hit almost every trip. Nico Rusch fished two days in the second week of October on Broadbill tagging a striped marlin on each day. October always has produced a mini run of striped marlin, particularly in the latter half.

At the start of November it was back to Lamu for Kamara II, this time to meet up with Linda and Chris Gardener from the UK. The crew and I took the boat up over night fishing slowly although being a full moon we knew the chances of success in the night would likely be small. We had quite a bit of small stuff all the way up, nothing in the night but then just outside Lamu in only 84m of water we had a triple header of striped marlin. That was very exciting especially when there are only three of you on a boat the size of Kamara II. We successfully tagged two of them, the third just came unhooked after a few minutes.

Linda and Chris flew in to Lamu, or Manda actually, on Air Kenya from Wilson Airport in Nairobi. The Korschen’s and their Peponi Hotel were wonderful in helping with the mooring and transfers. It is a wonderful location with great hospitality and yummy food. The best day of the safari was the second when we fished north from Lamu to Kiwayu. Apart from two sailfish Linda made a most unusual catch. She caught a manta ray on a rapala, and what’s more it was hooked in the mouth. It was quite a struggle on the rod and then even more so for the crew to release. There were few sails about but we had a good mixed bag of other game fishes and saw plenty of beautiful humpback whales really close up.

December was incredible for sailfish but unfortunately the boats spent too much time swinging on their moorings rather than fishing. I missed out on the best part of December because I had to be in Nairobi, which was very frustrating. I had experienced a tear in the retina in my only good eye mid month and had to fly up to Nairobi for emergency treatment. Thankfully Kenya is blessed with wonderful medical facilities and very good specialists. I am relieved to be able to type this and still go fishing but I don’t think that my sight will ever return to what it was before. The doctors just say that it is all part of getting old, grrrr!

But apparently there were sailfish in big numbers especially off Funzi and Msambweni beaches. The boats were frequently returning with 6 or 7 sailfish flags flying from the riggers. But, by the time I returned after the New Year the sails had moved on and we concentrated more on marlin. My first trip out was with Billy Lynch fly fishing in the hope of getting a marlin. Billy is an experienced fly fisherman and it was really exciting. We tagged two sailfish early on and then headed out in search of a marlin. Although we didn’t get one we did raise a couple of black marlin on to the teasers. Billy had already caught five striped marlin on fly but never a black marlin. The first one never followed the teaser but the second one came in beautifully and we worked him right up to the back of the boat. He was very aggressive and charged the fly, swam around it then came back to the transom and pushed off. It was all very exciting and I look forward to the next episode.

January was a very good marlin month especially in the second half but 2010 will be best remembered for the large numbers of juvenile striped marlin. Further north the packs of tiny stripies of 20-30 kg each started in the Boiling Pot together with sails and boats were recording anything up to eight marlin in a day. They didn’t appear here in quite the same numbers but there were still plenty. It is really interesting to see so many juveniles because they represent a very strong cohort, which will continue to grow and give us opportunity for good fishing in the future. This is why it is essential for us to tag and release all of our billfish.

When studying the catch statistics for Kenya it is important to keep in mind the number of boats that fish an area. As I mentioned earlier there are only three charter boats based in Shimoni fishing the Pemba Channel. Conversely on the rips off Watamu there may be anything up to 30 or more boats on any given day.

The best days in January include 15^th when Alexey Kashchenko, Vladimir Kuznetzov, Ivan Baykov and Alexey Rumiantsev from Russia tagged a 90-kg black marlin caught by Alexey Kashchenko, 2 striped marlin and a sailfish. On 23^rd Marc Ager and Colin Mostert from South Africa with a 90-kg black marlin caught by Marc on 30-lb line and 2 striped marlin. Colin was involved two days later with another great catch, this time with Leith Bray from Zimbabwe when they tagged 4 striped marlin. This was actually a quadruple hook-up and it is very uncommon to have a 100% success rate on a quadruple but they did and these were not the really small marlins but more normal size fish.

February continued with more of the same but with a few bigger fish, blues and blacks and some of the stripes were a bit larger too. Best days were 5^th when Carlos Rivero from Holland tagged a nice 320-lb black marlin on 50-lb line, a striped marlin and a sailfish. On 10^th John Carr-Hartley from Botswana, Doug Mckendrick from Scotland and Martin Poole from South Africa had 2 striped marlin and 2 sailfish. On 12^th the same team had 3 striped marlin and 2 sails. Doug was lucky with the big stripies catching 2 estimated at 180-lb and one estimated at 165-lb. John also caught two nice striped marlin on 20-lb line, both 5:1’s and the biggest of 145-lb. On 22^nd Goran Holm from Sweden had a very nice 350-lb blue marlin on 50-lb line with Fredrik Holm getting a striped marlin the same day.

In the last week of February the wind turned in to the south and it began to look as though the monsoon would come to a premature end. But, very late that month the wind swung back in to the north and the fishing remained good until 20^th March. During the period when the wind was mostly in the south Broadbill chartered by Salim Manji from Nairobi travelled north to fish the Kilifi Classic Fishing Tournament. They caught plenty of sailfish but unfortunately no marlin and on their way home they found large numbers of sails off Funzi and Msambeni with one group Pat estimated to contain around 40 fish.

During early March Kamara II went north to meet up with Albertus van Brakel, Conrad Durand and Leonard Wood from South Africa. They had fished with us in the channel on a number of previous occasions but decided this time they would like to fish north, particularly the North Kenya Banks, which can be very productive for big marlin in March. Unfortunately we were to find that the NKB was not so hot this year and that the fishing was better further south off Watamu. Actually the fishing in the Pemba Channel was also very good throughout this period. So after a short discussion it was decided to abort the safari and go back to Malindi and fish from there. We had done one day fishing out off the outer ledge of the NKB but found the water not very blue, no flying fish and nothing much moving at all. On the way back to Malindi we made up for it with a striped marlin and 5 sailfish and thereafter had at least one striped marlin every day. We ended up with 8 striped marlin and 9 sailfish in 6 days, so not too shabby.

At the end of that trip my good friend Raymond Matiba joined me to fish the Friends of Kenya Tournament hosted by Hemingways Resort. This is basically an extended combo since you head out in the early morning of the first day and don’t return until 4pm on day 2. We had 2 striped marlin and a sailfish but it was not good enough to get us higher than 10^th place. This was the first time that I have really fished the Watamu area so a big learning curve and next time we’ll have better knowledge of all the best spots.

One of the things that was really exciting this season was that big marlin were once again appearing in the Pemba Channel. Prior to this season and since bringing Kamara II up here in 2002 we have not even had the opportunity to lose a marlin over 400-lb. In mid March we lost two in three days, the first a black marlin of around 400-lb that unfortunately popped off when the angler back lashed the reel. Two days later we hit a much bigger fish that took a big lure on 80-lb line and in this case most bizarrely the 400-lb nylon leader bust on the opposite end to the lure on the first run. Then, in April Broadbill lost a very nice blue marlin of 6-700 lb on 50 that became tangled in a second line. The appearance of these big fish is very encouraging and hopefully marks a return to normality in the channel when big fish were a regular occurence.

Season statistics:

{BKM – black marlin; BLM – blue marlin; MLS – striped marlin; SWO – swordfish; SAI – sailfish}

* Kamara II and Jasiri also released a shortbill spearfish each

Prices:

We are pleased to advise that we don’t plan on making any changes to our fishing rates for the 2010-11 season. Please contact for a quote at <hemphill@bigame.com> or use the Contact Us tab on this site.

November 2010

We already have a booking for Kamara II in Malindi fishing Sunday 14^th to 18^th inclusive so if any of you may be interested in fishing with us either side of these dates please contact us as soon as possible. The dates leading up to Sunday 14^th would be preferable from our prospective.

We hope to see as many of you as possible during the 2010/11 fishing season in Shimoni or on a North Kenya fishing safari. Bookings are already coming in particularly for the billfish season so if you are interested in making a booking please don’t leave it too late. We wish you all the best for the coming season whatever you do or wherever you go and please stay in touch.

Tight lines!

Best wishes,

Pat, Maia, Simon, Tina, Lyndsay, Chris and all our wonderful staff at

Sea Adventures Ltd,

Email: hemphill@bigame.com

Tel: +254 (0)722 796 198 (Simon) or (0)722 479 864 (Maia)