Nairobi — The main ocean current started to run north again between Mombasa and Malindi in the off shore areas, and this quickly resulted in cleaner water and striped marlin and sailfish appearing in the Rips off Watamu and Kilifi.

Inside the Rips, and off Ngomeni and Mambrui, boats started to raise and catch black marlin. So a total reversal of the gloomy picture in these northern areas from the scene last week.

Clueless fished the North Kenya Bank en route up to a safari in the Lamu area after their successful trip to Shimoni, and had an amazing day with three black marlin and a stripey tagged - can it get much better than that?

From Watamu boats are finding black marlin on both lures and live bait, mostly outside the Banks with the Outer Mountains proving very productive. Seahorse caught a live bait out on the Centre Mlima and hearing of other boats raising these marlin closer in, took the bait to the Outer Mountains where they immediately hooked up and tagged a black.

B's Nest, fishing one of the teams in the South African Cadsas Inter-provincial championships now in progress at Hemingways, tagged another in the same area, and had a sail as well, while Simba and Tarka, in this same tournament, had tagged four and three sail respectively - all six boats in these championships were due to fish all night for broadbill swordfish so there should be some good scores there when they come home later today.

The first day of these championships had seen good fishing, with Tarka recording two striped marlin and a sail with the Cadsas team on board, B's Nest had a stripey and a sail. White Bear released three sail. The fishing teams rotate boats daily so it obviously helps to be on the boats that are running hot, but this is a strict competition under Igfa rules.

Three broadbill

Simba previously had a super Grand Slam on an overnight to the NKB, with a black and striped marlin, a sail and three broadbill with Ben and Glyn Thomas the anglers.

Malindi boats have also done well with the favourable current.

Malachite had to boat a black marlin, and had another up which they missed, while next day Snow Goose played a black on 15 kg line for eight hours! The crew had the leader several times but the fish was too strong, and at the last attempt to secure it the hook fell out!

A fish of this size, estimated around 250 kgs would have been an amazing catch on such a light line, almost double the existing record!

Eclare tagged a black marlin, and Snowgoose another, while Neptune has had good days at Ngomeni with up to three sailfish a day and plenty of smaller fish, keeping the anglers busy.

Shimoni boats are still having good marlin action, Broadbill having tagged several stripeys, including one for angler Frans Neuwirth who has been coming to fish with the Hemphills for 20 years. Jasiri tagged a blue marlin as well as a sail, Shuwari had two stripeys, while Kamara II found a sail for Bryan Matiba, aged eleven, his first but surely not his last as father Ray Matiba battled and lost a stripey on 15 kg line