KINGFISHER NEWS UPDATE JULY 2011
It’s all systems go again in Malindi as far as the tourist season goes. It has been a long off season for Malindi’s inhabitants, most of who rely on tourism. From curio sellers to taxi drivers it has been a lean few months but it is good to see all the hotels open and lots of visitors walking the streets. On the whole the weather has been tourist friendly with mainly sunny days but luckily we have had over two inches of rain this month. After looking like the rain had disappeared at the end of June we have had the odd shower throughout July. Most of the month has been exceptionally windy with two or three fishing days having to be cancelled due to the wind and swell. Fortunately it started to calm down a week or so ago and it is a lot calmer and pleasant now.
Although we haven’t been too busy on the fishing side we have had enough days to keep things ticking over. Eclare was the first to get back into the water after off season maintenance and she has now been joined by Snowgoose. Both are glistening and looking ready for action. The plan is that Neptune will go in at the end of the month and Snark will come out for some TLC. After four months of non stop work by Angus and our maintenance team Neptune is looking very good. The new engines are securely in place and they are now doing final touches and needless to say Angus is itching to get going.
This off season has also seen a lot of purchasing on the tackle front and all boats will have a number of new rods, reels and rod buckets etc.
On the 12th July Eclare fished the first of eight days with Peter Voght from Germany who has been fishing with us for the past three or four years now. Although it was extremely rough the whole day they didn’t have time to think about it as they raised sailfish after sailfish to the baits. They raised over twenty fish and ended up with ten! Malindi\Watamu may be renowned for sailfish but ten in a day in July is some going.
Peter has now fished seven of his eight days and has caught a total of twenty nine sailfish with an average of four per day. Its not as if they have been spending the whole time targeting them either as most of the time has been spent live baiting for marlin or shark. The sail have been caught on the way there and back. Unfortunately there has been a lack of marlin on the banks up to now. They had a nice fish up one day which they missed a few times before a small hammerhead came and took the bait from under its nose! They released the hammerhead but the marlin disappeared. Tarka has had one marlin this season and missed a couple of others but on the whole marlin fishing has been slow. There is plenty of bait around so hopefully they will appear soon.
Both Eclare and Snowgoose were out yesterday. Snowgoose was on her maiden voyage of the season and ended up with five sailfish, a kingfish and a green job fish. Not bad for a half day! Eclare spent most of the day live baiting but still ended up with four sailfish.
That’s about it from here for this week. Once boats are going out more regularly the news updates will get more regular as well. We don’t seem to be too lucky when it comes to computers and e-mails and after having to change our domain a month or so ago, we lost a lot of stuff when our main computer crashed a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately we lost our mailing list, so some of our regulars may not receive the update anymore. If you know anybody who doesn’t receive it and would like to, please ask them to send us their address. Similarly if you do not want to receive please let us know and send the address so that we can take you offwww.kenyasportfishing.net
