Reading a Tide Table Like a Local
Rawiri explains tide tables from scratch on a cold wharf at six in the morning, why slack tide is quieter than people think, and the two hours he would never skip.
Forty Years on the Boats with Uncle Tom
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Show notes
Forty Years on the Boats with Uncle Tom
Tom Ngatai fished commercially out of the Bay of Plenty from 1978 until 2019. In this long conversation on his back porch he talks about what the bay looked like when he started, the seasons he remembers, and the customary practices around taking only what a family needs.
- The first boat and the first storm
- What the snapper were like in the 1980s and what changed
- Taking enough and not more, and how he teaches it to his grandchildren
- Cheap gear that lasted him decades
Rawiri closes with a short filleting lesson Tom gave him on the porch table and the reason half a fish usually goes to waste.
Transcript
Kia ora, Rawiri Henare here, and this is Slack Tide. No wharf this time. I am sitting on a back porch in Maketu with a cup of tea and Tom Ngatai, who fished commercially out of this bay for more than forty years, from 1978 until he came ashore in 2019. Everyone around here calls him Uncle Tom and after an hour you will understand why. We are going to talk about his first boat and his first storm, what the snapper were like in the 1980s, what has changed under the water since, and the one rule about taking only what your family needs that he has taught every grandchild and would like to teach every weekend angler. At the end Tom gives me a filleting lesson at the porch table and I waste far less fish than usual. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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