BIG GAME FISHING Report, KENYA 2010/11
A time for reflection and planning new season by Capt Howard Lawrence-Brown

2011 season found big blacks and live baiting was the story here with kawa kawa being the choice for live baiting for me.
2009 and 2010 set the mood for fishing in 2011. We all had such a good season of marlin and sailfish catches in the preceding years, resulting in every one re booking pretty much in the same periods as previously, with some new faces in the mix.

This just goes to show how difficult it is to predict this wonderful sport of ours. We moved Kipapa up to Watamu in mid January looking forward to better fishing north and arrived to find the Watamu fleet of boats catching a few stripeys and blacks with sail fish in the mix. It’s odd to see 20 boats all creeping along with live baits out. We soon found we were doing the same, fortunately the bait was pretty well spread out and we didn’t have to fish too close to the rest of the boats.
Day one produced a black on a “friggie” of over 300 lb to angler Peter Bird. Peter is a senior citizen and I was surprised how strong he was, on 80lb tackle and successfully fought a strong black with 40 mins to tag and release, plus a sail 25 kg, then a good sized Wahoo. All this using up some 20 odd friggies as both live and dead baits.
Where we were looking forward to multiple hook ups and light tackle fun on sailfish, stripeys and small blues, we had to switch modes pretty quickly to live baiting to score at all.
No sooner had we got into this when our weather improved a bit and we were back offshore with Charles and Richard Oliver Bellasis. Charles as usual brought his luck and first fish of the day was a 100 kg black on a blue and white island lure combo. Two days later saw the sea turn green with currents reversing, forcing us back to the Banks and back to live baiting, jigging for trevally and bottom fish..... green water, ugh!

Charles nailed a bronze whaler shark on a dead bait weighing around 125 kg, and Richard got a hook up on a giant trevally, which was in turn eaten by a good sized shark, finally defeating us, pulling the hook after 40 mins. They did have a lot of fun with my favourite fish yellow fin tuna, catching between them at least 12.
Fishing just got more difficult with opposing winds and weird ocean currents, changes in water temperature, mostly too hot. Ah yes did I mention rain in January and February with overcast skies and wind stirring things up into a nasty chop? Prime February days which are normally fished offshore were unfishable, instead fishing with lures for a lot of this month. So we ended up inshore mostly off the Watamu Banks, canyons and the near mountains just 8 miles offshore.


There were of course some big pluses, like many really good blacks being caught on live baits mostly from first week of Feb onwards.
“Bait the difference”! Could you catch them or not? Some days were really difficult, especially if you fell amongst the wahoo and king fish, on more than one occasion we had them chopped before you could take a turn on the bait rod handle.


With plenty of bait available on the banks and canyons it held the blacks there pretty much from last December to this April. We had three in the 200 to 250 kg category, and none under 175 kg.
In March we won the Penn Challenge First Boat Trophy with two blacks in a 4 day competition, the biggest fish a black and all on live baits earned us a new Penn reel engraved.
There were a few days in between, when conditions improved somewhat, so we braved the wind and went offshore mid February with a couple of notable results hence a black to Darren Wilson on 30 lb tackle. Late afternoon windy and bumpy conditions makes manoeuvring the boat on a hot fish real fun and challenging.

Darren handled this like a pro hooking this fish after 50 minutes just before release. This fish was still fighting fit and full of colour and attitude, a great first for any one.

Speaking of rain look at Les’s sailfish in full wet gear, February this year.


Our boat Kipapa was entered in March for The Fly 540 fishing competition by three novice anglers, which always makes it tough as crews are in no way allowed to help strike fish and bill fish are notoriously difficult to hook when you have no way of practising and honing your skill. Steve Wright, Paul Hutton and Michael Evans were tied well in the lead, with another boat on day 1 with one striped marlin and a yahoo. Only two marlin were caught by the fleet on the first day, with a wahoo separating our boat with the boat Insteda lying first with a striped marlin and 2 dorado. Third placed boat Joint Venture” who had one black tagged and also in the mix tied second place was “Snark with a stripey and a dorado. Tight placings on the first day was the word.
Day 2 saw us with only one dorado and two other boats catching a stripey and a black so now it was down to the small fish. At three o clock there were 5 boats separated from first place by 6 points. Snark pipped everyone at the entrance with a sailfish and the order was then Unreal 2nd place, Tarka 3rd our boat, Kipapa 4th and Joint Venture 5th all separated by 5 points. Prize giving was fun with the organizers giving out great prizes. Our anglers were given 3 rods and gaffs. Our thanks to the sponsors and organizers for this competition.


We moved the boat back to Mtwapa in mid March and finished the season off with a lot of decent sized dorado, blue marlin, and a black.

The Tamarind/Yara/ Seaforth Competition was held in March, an annual event sponsored by Yara East Africa, The Tamarind Restaurant, and Seaforth Shipping, Mombasa. The bulk of the money raised over expenses goes to a Kenya charity for the blind. Kipapa finished 4th in this comp with a tagged blue marlin and a dorado.

In this comp dead fish still outpoint or equal tagged fish, which never ceases to astound me in this day and age where organizers seem reluctant to get more conservation in to their programme.

Sue’s request last year was before this season ended she now wanted to have a go at hooking a marlin. So we took Kipapa for a day out towards the end of March and fished from our base on Mtwapa Creek. At 11:30 a m we raised a black which looked at everything but wouldn’t light up and get involved.

Later on just after 2 pm we raised another one and this one hit a small lure and took off with a blistering run with huge jumps and direction changes. Sue grabbed the rod and struck and this one stuck. Her first marlin, one of the few we caught trolling this year, a black of around 300 lb and not a good fish for a first time marlin fisherwoman and on 50lb tackle.

What a thrill this fish was, sounding deep. After taking an aching hour Sue was defeated and gave up the fight. The fish had gone down too far for her to bring up and it was up to me to bring it to the leader and 20 minutes to revive with a satisfying release.
The future of turtles worldwide is threatened especially where there is not enough commitment by local authorities to educate and regulate net fishermen together with the disastrous damage being done to the fisheries and eco system.