The Largest Anging/Fishing site in Africa

Dear Friends,

I would like to thank all those who were able to make it to Dad’s (Herbies) Kwaheri (Memorial) on the 9th August. I am sure all those who made it will agree it was a very special day, and Dad was sent off how he would have liked. Some of us were still at the club at 4 o’clock in the morning, including his two sons!

The fishing has been fantastic, especially for Black Marlin. There have been 88 Black Marlin caught in the last 2 months between Malindi and Watamu. When you take into consideration that most boats are not even in the water and those that are, are not fishing every day, it has been quite incredible.

With all the news of Black Marlin around, the crews have been working frantically to get their boats back into the water. The boats are now all in and are looking better than ever before, with lots of improvements. All boats now have live bait tubes and all the tackle is constantly being up graded.  It is just very sad to see them so excited to get their boats back into the water, only for them sit on the mooring everyday with no fishermen to go out.

Neptune did her maiden trip of the new season on the 26th July with Perez and Christine, regular friends from Belgium. Perez having caught a Bull Shark of 223 kg last year           managed to beat his personal record by releasing a Bull Shark of 240 kg after a 2 and a half hour fight.

Our loyal regulars Richard Edwards, Philip Mathais and his son Nick returned to do their annual fishing trip at the beginning of August. Philip had a nice Black of 147 kg, unfortunately this fish had to be boated as it was badly damaged. In their 6 days of fishing they had a grand total of 2 Black Marlin, 6 sailfish, 5 giant trevally(the largest being 36 kg), 8 kingfish, 8 wahoo ( the largest being 27 kg), 14 yellowfin tuna( the largest being 20 kg), 5 dorado(the largest being 15 kg), 5 barracuda ( the largest being14 kg), 5 big eye trevally, 4 longtail tuna, 3 rainbow runner, 92 kawakawa and 60 frigate mackerel. Not bad for six days fishing; it made a total of thirteen different species of fish and this is the beauty of fishing on the banks at this time of year. You just don’t know what is going to coming along next.

On the 14th August I had the pleasure of taking Bruce Buckland out fishing on Neptune. Bruce (ex Manager of the Driftwood Beach Club) had come up to attend Dad’s memorial and did a fantastic job as the Master of Ceremonies. We had a great day out and ended up raising 11 Blacks, catching 3, and a sailfish. Bruce being an avid light tackle fisherman   managed to release a Black Marlin of 100 plus kg, a really good effort.

Perez and Christine also fished SnowGoose on her maiden trip on the 5th August. Perez released his first Black Marlin, a fish estimated at around 65 kg. He also had a good Kingfish of 21kg and four Giant Trevally, one of which topped 31 kgs. One of the giant trevally was taken by a bull shark on the way in and they were just left with the head.

Martin Joswig brought a group out from Germany, and we had three fun days fishing with them . The first day they fished on Neptune and caught a Black of approximately 90 kg, a sailfish and a mixed bag of other fish. On the 18th they fished on Eclare and had a fantastic day with 2 Black Marlin of over 90 kg each, a sailfish, 2 Giant Trevally, 2 Yellowfin and lots of bait. The last day they fished on Eclare again but this was not such a good day with a wahoo of 17 kg, a kingfish and other bits and pieces. Most of this group had not caught a billfish in their lives so you can imagine the bell being rung in the fishing club after their days fishing!!!!

On the 24th August, Billy Lynch came down to fly fish. We were a bit worried as most boats were only fishing for Marlin so we did not know how many sailfish were really around. He went out on Eclare who has become our professional fly fishing boat. They had 3 sailfish up and Billy caught 2 on fly, well done him. Unfortunately he did not have one of those Blacks up.

Tina has only fished 2 days. On their first day out they had a nice Black of around 90 kg. They also fought another fish which took a live bait on the surface for close to 2 hours before the hook broke. On their second day out they had 2 sailfish.

Snark is in the water but unfortunately has had no one to go out with. So you can imagine Adi ;he is difficult to control jumping up and down at the bit wanting to get out there.

I am sure most of you watched the Olympics and noticed how well Kenya did and how we were once again Africa’s top nation. It goes without saying that it was our long distance runners who did us proud and won all our medals including four golds. If it wasn’t for our persistent rivals from Ethiopia spoiling the party we may well have had a clean sweep.

  However Kenya will also be remembered for some incredible performances in a sport that most Kenyans have never even heard of. I refer to Jason and David Dunford in the swimming.  These two guys fished with me three years ago with their father Martin when all the big yellowfin tuna were around. David who was then 15 years old, having already caught a tuna of 88 kg got stuck into a much bigger fish. You could see him after an hour starting to loose his patience, and with this his brute strength was coming into play. It wasn’t before long that a sound like a gun shot went off with the rod snapping in two; the line promptly parted and the big fish swam of on its merry way.
 I was really happy to get a call from Martin the other day to say the boys were back from China and wanted to go fishing on the 28th August. David is now 19 years old and even bigger than he was last time I had them out. David was the youngest swimmer in the 50 meters free style and won his heat but unfortunately his time was not good enough to go through. Jason, David’s older brother swam in the 100 meter butterfly beating the Olympic record in his first heat only for the record to be beaten in another heat later on. Jason made it to the final in the 100 meter butterfly finishing an incredible 5th. Needless to say the race was won by no other than Michael Phelps. What an achievement, first time a Kenyan swimmer has ever got this far. I am happy to say that even after all that training for the Olympics my rods are still in one piece this time! We had a really great day out, ending up with 4 sailfish, a wahoo of 24.5 kg, a giant trevally, 3 big eye trevally, a barracuda and bait. We are all keeping our fingers crossed for both brothers come London 2012.

Apart from being very quite business wise all is well in Malindi and for that matter in Kenya as a whole.

We hope that things will pick up soon and we can get back out on to the high seas again before to long.