9th August I've just received the first of Olaf - the Grimmel - Grimkowski's entertaining e-mails from Croatia where their season, aboard Shy 2, started on 1st August.

It was rather a slow start - lots of decent Tuna spotted but no immediate results. However the first day out they did catch a 200lb Blue Shark. And on the Monday, when they went 11 miles offshore, they had a further 200 pounder plus another around the boat but, in Olaf's words, one that was too clever.

The other boats stayed closer in and White Shark recorded the season's first Bluefin, a fish of 221lbs (101.5kgs). All, with the weather settling down, bodes well for the fishing over the next few days.

16th August Now the next update from Olaf. And I really want, where possible to use Olaf's words - he's SO enthusiastic about his fishing!

There are still a lot of 200lbs Blue Sharks arround that reduce the numbers of hooks and leaders in the tackleboxes but also the bluefins eat now. There are two to three brought in every day and the biggest one so far was a 140kg (308lbs) one from Bakul. El Patron caught a 109.5kg (241lbs) one and most of the fish are between 70 and 100kg (150 - 220lbs). Shy 2 caught its first one also and I was the lucky one to fight it on 50lb tackle . It weighed 80kgs (176lbs).

The next day we lost a propeller and a shaft so we are out of business for the last few days but I hope to get the new shaft today.

Since we have our boat back in the water we had some action. On 11th August we hooked an estimated 120kg (260lb) Bluefin on Dieters 16lb outfit. But after 10 minutes and 450 metres of line out, we broke him off. We also caught a Sunfish (Mola Mola) of 40kg (90lbs) on the 16lb tackle. (They similarly had one the previous season. That was fairly hooked in the mouth on a squid deadbait whilst fishing deep for Swordfish.) In the evening we changed to heavy tackle and caught a 106kg (233lbs) Bluefin.

Two days later we caught a 80kg fish and had a 'megabite' just before we wanted to go home ! After 30 seconds this thing took about 350 metres of line and than broke the 120lb flurocarbon. After that, with a thicker leader, we managed to catch another two fish - one of around 70kg and one of 96kg.

At the moment there is always somebody catching so you can, on average, add three to four fish per day to this report.

24th August Olaf reported that with rough sea conditions over the last few days the Tuna fishing had slowed significantly. However there were two interesting billfish captures reported out of Jezera - a 189lb (86kg) Broadbill and a 66lb (30kg) Shortbill Spearfish. Images provided by Olaf appear below.

The Broadbill was taken by an angler fishing single-handed at night, on the drift, in a 19' boat - Seeadler. It took a double herring bait fished at 160' (50 metres).with a cylume lightstick acting as an attractor. The Spearfish was taken on a small Sailfish lure.

Click on each in turn to display a full image of the fish. Click on the 'X', top right, to close that window.

Just picked up details from Ian Carter's web site of a near 'grander' Blue Marlin taken on the Condor Bank by an English angler - Kevin Valentine. The fish, which had a short length of 11 ft 6 inches and girth of 6 ft 1 inch, tipped the scales at 979lbs.

From what I can glean the fish was taken on 80lb class tackle fishing bait 'n' switch. They initially had the fish at the transom within 2 hours ready for tagging but, in that it looked like it would make 1000lbs, Zak dumped the wraps and got the crew to prepare the gaffs. The fight continued for another 4 hours before they finally secured it.

There are further details and photographs of the fish on Ian's web site which may be viewed by clicking here.

Neptune and Eclare have moved to Ngomeni, to fish the same area that produced the record Yellowfin Tuna last season. The fish were in exactly the same place, just in larger numbers. On Monday 9th August Richard Moller and Ian Craig on Eclare caught an amazing 2350lbs (1066 kgs) of Yellowfin Tuna. This is the record for the most weight of fish caught in a single day, with largest single fish being 172lbs (78 kg). Neptune caught the largest fish of the day of 185lbs (84 kg).

On the following day Eclare had Joss de Kock and Keith van der Spuy on board, together with Keith's two sons - Greg and Jason. Greg - 16 years old - managed to break the existing Kenyan 80lb line class record with a massive Yellowfin Tuna of 219lbs (99.5 kg). This was part of a triple header! One was lost early on in the fight and the other after a 2 hour battle. All in all they caught nearly 1800lbs (800kg) of Tuna, with larger fish seen and lost. These fish stayed around until late September last season. Let's hope they do the same this season!!

"A great day's fishing that will be remembered for life" - these were the words of William Bland fishing on Eclare on Friday 13th. William and his team managed to catch a total weight of 1,006 kgs of Yellowfin Tuna for the day with two of over 90 kgs and three over 80 kgs. The highlight though was a potential 'All African' 130lb class record - a 98 kg (216lb) YFT caught by Ian Faulkner.

Still not managed to catch the 100 kilo Yellowfin Tuna yet!! Although many have been seen and lost. On the 15th Richard Edwards fishing on Neptune, unfortunately lost one of over 100 kilos at the boat but managed to come home with 15 Tuna the biggest of 56 kgs. Thomas Wright fishing on Eclare on the 14th had a double strike, Thomas catching one of 78 kgs and one of 97 kgs caught by the crew.

Debbie Holroyd back again to break another record!! Last year Debbie managed to break the ladies Yellowfin Tuna record on 130 lb line and yesterday Debbie fishing on Eclare did it again, breaking the 80 lb line record with a Yellowfin Tuna of 85.5 kg (188.5lbs), which has not been broken since 1986. Its been a record breaking week!!!

Ian Faulkner's Yellowfin Tuna - a potential 'All African' 130lb class - comes over the transom. It was part of a 1000+ kilo one day catch.

The image, with whom the copyright remains, was kindly supplied by Kingfisher Boats of Malindi, Kenya. To access their web site to view other great catches and determine booking details click here.

Click on the thumbnail to view a full sized image. The 'X', top right, then closes that window.

2nd September Well it’s the ladies again! Twelve days after catching her 187lb (85kg) Yellowfin on 80 Debbie Holroyd was back on the record trail. This time it was a fish of 192lbs (87kg) on 50 – a potential Ladies Kenyan Line Class record – and getting ever closer to that 200lb mark.

Then on 24th August Karen Mathews fishing on Neptune finally cracked the 100kg (220lb) mark with a fish of 105kg (231lbs). A big fish, but unfortunately one that cannot be claimed as a record, because a tangle was created by having 4 big fish on at the same time and the crew assisted in straightening the lines out. Otherwise Karen brought that fish to the boat without any assistance what so ever. They had 3 other fish that day of 90, 84 & 70kg.

There are much bigger fish where this one came from. Richard Edwards lost a fish at the boat which was considerably bigger than Karen's fish, and the skippers from the flying bridge are seeing bigger fish every day. But it seems the bigger they get the more difficult it is to hook up with them!

Unfortunately trawlers still trawling on the pretext of research. No change! On Saturday 28th a Humpback Whale became entangled in one of the nets off Malindi. Rob Hellier on Ol Jogi found it, then came into Malindi and collected some divers from Tropical Village who managed to free the whale which swam happily away. Well done Rob! Malindi Bay must be like a mine field with the number of nets out there. A very dangerous place for any fish!