Nairobi — Fantastic fishing continues along the Kenyan coast with 18 boats fishing in the annual Watamu Sea Fishing Club Fly540 tournament.

They caught nine marlin and 64 sailfish on the first day alone, an average of 3.5 sail and half a marlin per boat.

Only three of the boats failed to find sailfish this first day, and two of these caught a marlin - amazing statistics. Instedda, a private boat from Mombasa but usually based in Watamu to be nearer the best waters, tagged two marlin and seven sailfish the first day and came home ahead of Seyyida, fished by Hans Schonauer and Capt. Nasiru.

They had scored two marlin and four sail.

Instedda was skippered by Imran Moosa.

The Tarka team of Phil Revett, Reg Avery and skipper Callum Looman was not far behind with a black marlin and six sail.

The second day was to prove crucial - the boats had to be back by the 3 pm finish and most of the fish had come up late in the afternoon on the first day when the finish was 5pm.

Major prizes

But Instedda found three more sail for anglers Adam Ogden, Frank Lason and friends to maintain the lead and give them 1829 points to secure the overall first place, winning the major prizes and a splendid array of fishing rods and reels generously given by the sponsors Fly540.

Seyyida tagged two more sail on the second day, good enough to keep them in second place with 1485 points while the team on Clueless, Messrs Darnborough, Fontana, Cook and Duff came on strongly with a good late run of a striped marlin and three sail to add to their first day tally of seven sail, giving them 1315 points for third place.

This pushed the Tarka team into fourth place, although they added three sail, with eight dorado and a wahoo for their 1274 point total.

Al Cavanagh, M Lucanot and the Tundos on Ol Jogi, who had a black marlin and three sail the first day, added a sail, six yellowfin and five wahoo the second day to give them fifth place.

Smart catamaran

They were just ten points ahead of Reinhardt Stritter and Peter Ready in Seahorse who finished strongly with a striped marlin and a sail the second day to add to four sail the first day.

Another boat to do well was Lascar, a smart new catamaran whose owner, Chris Venn from South Africa, imported her from South Africa and then christened her with the help of his friend Dudley Wintle with three marlin and eighteen sailfish in their first three days fishing in Kenya.

They then had seven sail in this tournament.

Incredible fishing

Claudine, with owner Anthony Haji and friends Jim Robertson and Grant Mcready, had fished the beautiful 42' Bertram flybridge sport fisherman up from their base in Dar-es-Salaam and ended up in the tournament with a striped marlin and three sail.

Incredible fishing, much enjoyed by all and especially all the anglers from overseas, and many thanks to the sponsors. The 'Friends of Kenya' tournament, two days and a night, is being fished now, and earlier reports indicate lots of billfish so far - results next week.