Deep-Sea and Sport Fishing in Kenya

Deep-sea fishing and sport fishing are the same activity in Kenya, sold under two names. The boats are the same boats, the crews are the same crews, the grounds are the same drop-offs and banks, and the law makes no distinction: Kenya's Fisheries Management and Development (Recreational Fisheries) Regulations, 2024 define "sport fishing" as meaning recreational fishing. This guide covers both.

What makes the Kenyan fishery unusual is geography. The continental shelf is narrow here, so deep water and the current systems that run along it are close inshore. A boat leaving Shimoni or Watamu can be over serious depth within an hour, which is why the country has a long-established billfish reputation and why five billfish species are caught in the same waters.

Where the boats go

• Shimoni and the Pemba Channel, on the far south coast beyond Diani Beach. The channel between the mainland and Pemba is deep, current-swept and the most consistently productive marlin water in the country.
• Watamu, working the offshore banks and seamounts, with a long tradition of billfish tagging.
• Malindi, where the club tradition on this coast is oldest and where sailfish concentrate in the closing months of the year.
• Mombasa and Kilifi, working the reef edge and the deeper water beyond it.
• The North Kenya Banks, offshore of the northern coast towards Lamu, known for large yellowfin tuna and reached on longer runs.

The season, month by month

The offshore calendar is set by the two monsoons. The Kaskazi is the northeast monsoon, roughly November to March, and it gives the flat seas the fishery depends on. The Kusi is the southeast monsoon, roughly May to September or October, and it brings the heaviest rain to the coast in May and June.

May and June are the one period when the fishery genuinely stops. The long rains arrive, the Kusi builds, and most of the larger boats come out of the water for maintenance rather than running offshore. Any plan built around those two months should assume that a full offshore day is unlikely.

The main billfish season is usually described as running from October to somewhere in the second half of March. A "slam", meaning several billfish species taken by one angler in one day, is possible here in a way it is not in most of the world, and Kenya has been singled out in the international game-fishing press for precisely that.

The species

Five billfish species occur in Kenyan waters: sailfish, black marlin, blue marlin, striped marlin and broadbill swordfish. Alongside them the boats take yellowfin tuna, wahoo, kingfish, giant trevally, dorado and a range of reef and bottom species on lighter tackle.

Two fish over 1,000 pounds, known in the sport as granders, have been landed off this coast, and a mould of the first is held at the Malindi club. Those are historic catches rather than a description of what a visiting angler should expect, and the modern practice is emphatically not aimed at repeating them.

Tag and release: what is actually practised

The Kenyan billfish fishery has run on catch-and-release for decades, and it is not a recent marketing position. The African Billfish Foundation, based at Watamu, has carried out billfish tagging and research on this coast since 1986 and describes itself as holding the largest billfish tagging database in Africa. Kenyan boats have also taken part in satellite tagging work, including the satellite tagging of striped marlin in Kenyan waters, which feeds into regional stock research on a species that crosses the whole western Indian Ocean.

The practical form this takes on a boat is a conventional tag applied at the side of the vessel, the fish revived and released without being lifted aboard, and the tag number recorded. Clubs on this coast are commonly affiliated to the International Game Fish Association and to the Kenya Association of Sea Angling, and billfish and sharks are released as standard practice rather than as an option the angler chooses.

This deserves to be stated carefully rather than as a slogan. Release is not the same as no mortality: a proportion of released billfish do not survive, which is why fight times, hook types and handling technique matter and why crews that know what they are doing keep the fish in the water. And release is standard for billfish and sharks, not for everything: tuna, wahoo and kingfish are food fish and are routinely kept within the legal limit.

What the law requires

The framework is the Fisheries Management and Development Act and, under it, Legal Notice 127 of 2024, the Fisheries Management and Development (Recreational Fisheries) Regulations, 2024, which commenced on 30 July 2024 and replaced an earlier 2024 notice. The substance matters to any visiting angler.

• A licence is required, and it is issued by the county government in which the fishing takes place, not by a national agency. Categories run annual, monthly, weekly and daily, with fees set in the regulations' own schedule.
• Catch and release is a legal expectation, not merely a convention. The regulations require a licence holder to practise catch-and-release fishing to the extent possible, except where a fish is injured or killed in the course of fishing.
• Landings are capped at three pieces per permit per fishing day, in cases where a fish is injured or killed.
• Selling the catch is prohibited. A recreational licence holder may not buy or sell fish taken while recreational fishing, and a levy of seven percent of landed value is payable to the county government.
• Gear is restricted to angling, meaning hook and line, trolling line or rod and reel, or to fly fishing.
• Protected areas are closed to recreational fishing. No fishing is permitted in an area declared a protected area or prohibited under that area's management plan, which means the marine national parks are off limits.
• Protected species are closed to recreational fishing, with a fine of up to twenty thousand shillings or up to three months' imprisonment, or both.
• Catch data must be reported. The licence holder submits a catch data return on a prescribed form, and that form has columns for fish retained, fish released alive, fish discarded, and tagged individuals with the tag identifier recorded.

That last provision is the one that changes the picture. Tag and release on this coast is not only a club culture; it is written into the return the licence holder is required to file.

Fees charged by the wildlife authority

Separately from the fishing licence, Kenya Wildlife Service charges for activity inside the areas it manages. Sport fishing in national parks and reserves is charged per line, and marine protected areas are expressly excluded from that charge because fishing is not permitted in them at all. Sport fishing boats stationed inside a marine protected area pay monthly or annual anchoring fees graded by vessel length.

Figures checked against the published Kenya Wildlife Service conservation fee schedule in September 2026, which took effect on 1 October 2025. The recreational fishing licence fees set under Legal Notice 127 of 2024 are deliberately not reproduced here: the published schedule splits them across marine and inland columns and the available text does not make clear which figure belongs to which column.

A day on the water

An offshore day starts early, usually before first light, because the run to the grounds eats the best of the morning and because the sea is flattest before the monsoon builds through the day. Boats troll lures and rigged baits at slow speed, which is the method the regulations describe, and the majority of a day is spent waiting for a strike.

Two practical points that the promotional material tends to omit. First, offshore fishing is a poor choice for anyone prone to seasickness; the Kenyan grounds involve real open water and the runs are long. Second, a day offshore is a long commitment with no way to leave early, which is worth weighing for a mixed party where only some people want to fish. Parties split between anglers and non-anglers are often better served by a shorter inshore day, or by pairing the fishing with snorkelling or a dhow cruise for the rest of the group.

Common questions