MEMORIES
Tuna Time with Mom Special days out off Table Bay By Ryan Nienaber Photos by Grootdorsproduksies
M
Y mom, Stella Taylor, has witnessed the absolute obsession that my brother and I have both had for fishing in the ocean since we were young boys. Her adventurous spirit has lead her to join us on a couple of occasions in and around the peninsula, catching the odd yellowtail or snoek, but we recently had an extra special day on the water.. Mom (now 67) has seen our factory hustle and bustle with boats in and out at the yard, and has heard all the stories of the big tuna that we catch on our doorstep in Cape Town, but until recently she had never witnessed first hand what we do in the deep. Traditionally, our Cape Town tuna season runs from the end of March until mid-May and sometimes the start of June when the northwesterly winds and cold fronts bring on the Cape Town winter storms. Late one Thursday afternoon I was looking at the weather
for the weekend and saw that Friday 10 June’s weather was looking absolutely perfect. It was unprecedented for that time of year, and with the waters still looking good, I decided to take a run out off Table Bay in search of some tuna, and invited Mom to go along. Our boat was still rigged for snoek as we had spent the last of couple weeks up the west coast on the snoek run, so after a late evening getting the boat into “tuna mode” I finally got home and quickly made up five trolling squids and grabbed two bait rods. We launched at 5am from Oceana in Cape Town, heading out 40nm to the tuna grounds where the trawlers had been working the day before.A couple of hours later day break was upon us, the water temp had jumped from 14°C to 19°C and bird life everywhere it just looked fishy. We where still a couple miles short of where I wanted to start fishing for the day, but it just looked so good I couldn’t resist.
Mother and son Stella Taylor and Ryan Nienaber with the 81kg brute Stella caught. SKI-BOAT September/October 2022 • 39
