September 2004

North of the Border  Or should it more properly be entitled the two ends of the spectrum? 

Any rate firstly Stan Massey fly fishing a stocked lake near Stirling for trout took three Rainbows in the 2 to 4lb range all on a floating line, fishing buzzers on a 4lb tippet.  Then up popped a 9lb 4oz wild Brown Trout!  A new Club record which took him 15 minutes to land - it was subsequently released.

Flushed with success two weeks later Stan turned his attention to Pike on a renowned local Pike water.  Here he wrestled to the bank a truly monsterous fish.  Well everything's relative.  And it was approaching half an inch longer than the 4" Toby spoon he was using!  And, to boot, fairly hooked on one of the points of the treble.  A truly voracious 'beastie'!

Taiwan  Now I guess at this point many of you will be reaching for your atlas?  New member David Irving, currently based in Thailand, has just returned from a two day/one night trip fishing out of the port of Keelung, to the north of Taiwan's capital, Taipei.  Technically though I suspect they were, 12 hours out, actually fishing in Japanese waters.  Results for David and his 7 friends were excellent and were made up of more tropical pelagics than I'd expected.  Here's David's catch report:

The place was alive with fish!  And between 8 anglers we managed to catch - 100Kg+ (220lb) Stingray, 60Kg (130lb) Bull Shark, 4 Dogtooth Tuna up to 40Kg (90lb), 30Kg (65lb) White tip Reef Shark, Giant Trevallies to 20Kg (45lbs), about 20 Amberjack to 15Kg (35lbs), countless Wahoo to about 15Kg, lots of small Yellowfin, Pacific Bonitos, Skipjack, 10Kg Cobia, Barracouta, Snappers, Rainbow Runners, Dorado, Longtom, Jobfish and numerous types of bottom fish.  For variety it was one of the best trips we have done over here - all the fish were caught on jigging gear - no game rods and reels in sight!

These are images of some of the fish David and his friends caught on this and a previous trip.  Click on each of the thumbnail images in turn to display a full sized image.  Clicking then on the 'X', upper right, will then return you to this page.

An impressive Stingray	Big Dogtooth Tuna
Amberjack	Giant Trevally
Dogtooth Tuna	Dogtooth Tuna
	Another Dogtooth - reputedly the hardest fighting of the Tunas.  Usually encountered over structure.

Dever Springs - Trout Fishing - 19 September  Given Saturday’s inclement weather – loads of showers – some of us were looking at Sunday’s trip with just an element of trepidation.  But for once the weather forecaster was right – largely overcast and breezy, but with some sunshine.  That certainly makes spotting fish easier.

Any rate, largely thanks to Gordon Richards generosity in underwriting the trip we were able to take over the fishery on a corporate basis.  It certainly made it a more pleasurable experience for the 16 of us.  On ‘public days’ it can end up as a bit of a ‘bun fight’, especially when big fish are spotted.  Unfortunately manners and common courtesy seem to go out of the window with some people.

So Dick Clack and I (Dave West) arrived at 8 o’clock (the official opening time) only to find that quite a few had beaten us to it.  And, looking round the lake, there were one or two bent rods already.

It was in that first spell, before a particularly enjoyable ‘full English’ breakfast, that John Watson latched in to a superb Rainbow – a fish of 16lb 14oz on an 8lb tippet.

Whilst wandering around for breakfast Vince Webb had spotted a ‘big double’ cruising in tight circles in a small bay at the top end (near the lodge) of the lake.  It’s not a spot you normally spot fish so, to my mind, a sure sign that it had been hooked before.  So replenished by the breakfast, and thanks to Vince’s generosity, I spent the next 20 minutes watching the fish that was still cruising some 4 or 5 feet down.  Then its behaviour changed.  It was laying motionless just sub-surface.  Unfortunately the breeze had picked up though.

I fired a small buzzer that, surprisingly in the stiff breeze, landed perhaps three feet beyond it with the leader positioned some 2 feet in front of its nose.  Inching it back I saw the fish react, and with a gentle flick of the tail it eased forward.  Then I was in a predicament.  I couldn’t see the flash of white mouth as it feed so had to take a chance.  Gently tightening I got a hook hold and, like many of those big fish, it just came up and wallowed on the surface.  Then the hook hold failed!  I vividly remember saying something like ‘Oh, bother!’

Any rate most of our members continued catching throughout the day.  But the highlight of the day was undoubtedly Terry Davy’s huge rainbow – a 21 ½ pounder - from the small lake on an 8lb tippet.  He’d spotted it just a rod length out.  And both John Watson and Terry Gunning went on to take further double-figured fish – Rainbows of 12 and 10lbs respectively – and a number of members caught limit bags.

All in all a superb day and hopefully something we can repeat next year.

Malindi, Kenya  This identifies some of the more memorable catches recorded by the Kingfisher fleet, based in Malindi, during  September.  Full details are recorded on their web site which may be accessed by clicking here.

I guess firstly, to put it into context, that period from July through to October tends to be relatively quiet – there’s a distinct lack of tourists.  But not necessarily fish!

Here we go.

Week ending Sunday 5th September.  Well the Sailfish certainly seem to be present with the best one day catch, on Eclare, to the Hill family being 16 releases.  But how many were lost?  As well big shoals of Rainbow Runner were encountered, together with Wahoo and Kingfish.  There were even a few small Yellowfin encountered, certainly not the monsters around in August.

Week ending 12th September.  Weather conditions deteriorated – it was windy with rough seas.  The current was running north, but water temperatures were relatively cold, around 75 degrees.  Given these rather uncomfortable conditions though the fishing further north was fantastic.  Sails were the ‘order of the day’ with 4, 5 or 6 being the norm for the boats fishing.  But on the Thursday when the seas were at their worst Eclare tagged 24 Sails, believed to be a record for the Malindi area.  They never trolled for more than 10 minutes between strikes and on many occasions encountered 5, or even more, fish trying to ‘kill’ the teasers. 

The pelagic brown crabs and mantis shrimp were very much in evidence and all bodes well for what should be an excellent Sailfish season!

Angus also reported the grounding of East African Safari Air Express which will have the propensity to cause chaos in Kenya’s recovering tourist industry. Unfortunately, as of yet the Government has not put in place any plans to keep the airline flying.

Week ending Sunday 19th September.  The nasty weather persisted into the early part of the week although, by Wednesday, the wind moderated and fishing started to improve.  Whilst Sailfish still dominated catches – the best one day catch on Nepture, fishing to the north, was 22 – there were also a few reasonable catches of school Yellowfin, fish up to 25lbs.  Snark also released a Tiger Shark, estimated at 800lbs, and had a good kingfish of 37lbs.

Angus in his report also noted that trawler activity was increasing and an examination of their catch - containing large numbers of Paweezi, an estuarine fish found off the Sabaki River mouth – suggested that they were operating close inshore.  The locals also set shark nets off Malindi and one ended up yield a 900lb Black Marlin.

Week ended 26th September.  Very little activity due to limited charters – best one day catch 15 Sailfish and 5 Kingfish on Eclare fishing out of Ngomeni.  Eclare’s skipper though did report that the water was alive with bait - mantis prawns, and anchovies so plentiful that they were appearing on the sounder as a solid mass!