From: Kingfisher <kingfisher@swiftmalindi.com>
Sent: Monday, February 16, 2004 1:20 AM
Subject: Weekly Fishing report

Report for week ending Sunday 15th February 2004
This weeks weather has been good with wonderful calm mornings and an off shore breeze on most days. Sunny and clear, visibility has greatly improved. Water temperature is a little low for this time of year ranging between 77 to 81F. The moon is entering the last quarter, dark nights coming up. Very hot during the day with frogs in full cry during the night indicating possible rain soon. Lets hope.

Everyone has been concentrating on Marlin this past week from the Malindi ledge to the banks. Many have been seen and some caught. They are all small Blacks - 100 kg plus. Striped Marlin have not appeared yet but there is still a chance that they might just pay us a visit as the water on the banks and rips is beautiful blue and clear.

The European EFSA tournament, which is limited to 30 lb line, has been in progress in Watamu this past week and runs for 6 days. Many of the competitors are inexperienced and certainly out of practice on Billfish, hence a certain amount of finger trouble resulting in birdsnests etc and you all know the story after that. So fish that should have clocked up points have been lost. Pity, anyway the main reason to go fishing is to have fun, and lets hope they all had a good time and enjoyed themselves and will be back next year.

On the Monday SnowGoose had 4 Sailfish and a mixed bag and Snark came back with 3 sailfish. On the Tuesday, fishing out Ngomeni, Neptune had a good day with 5 sailfish a blacktip shark, kingfish, tuna and bonito. SnowGoose had 2 sailfish and Eclare 1 sailfish.Tina had a blacktip shark on Wednesday and Neptune a nice cobia of 26 kg. On Thursday Neptune fishing again out of Ngomeni had 2 sailfish and 23 other fish. Eclare fishing out of Malindi had a nice black marlin whilst Snark got a blacktip shark. Friday another black marlin on Eclare of 131 kgs, this fish had to be boated unfortunately. On Saturday Eclare lost a marlin right by the boat. Sunday Snark had a marlin and lost another to trigger fish cutting the line. This happens too often when fishing the banks. Alleycat got a marlin and lost a second reportedly over 200 kgs on 30 lbs line. The fish went to the bottom and they were unable to lift it up. This has happened twice to Alleycat in this EFSA tournament.

This has been a great week for marlin. Every boat will have seen and raised them; what happens after that? Well, all of you will have experienced that feeling when a big fish comes up to your bait, total disbelief, panic and that feeling of being inadequate!

Lets hope that these fish will still be around for the Billfish Torunament this coming weekend and for the Watamu March Tournament. Tight lines for this next week
H.P.


Kingfisher Boats
P.O. Box 29
Malindi
Kenya
Tel: +254-42-20123
Email: kingfisher@swiftmalindi.com
Website: www.kenyasportfishing.net