Cape Town Tuna Fishing Heats Up as Offshore Season Peaks

A Cape Town offshore report on April 9 described tuna fishing as “on fire,” and the species list told the real story: yellowfin tuna, albacore tuna and skipjack tuna were all in the mix. That is not a one-fish window. It is the kind of spread that tells anglers the offshore system is lit up across different sizes and feeding patterns, with enough activity to back up the “height of tuna fishing season” label.

The biggest draw is still yellowfin. Cape Town’s fishing guide places yellowfin from November to June, when the warmer Agulhas current sits closer to shore, and April falls squarely inside that stretch. Other Cape Town charter and destination pages back up the same picture, describing yellowfin running offshore from Hout Bay and noting that local tuna can reach 130-plus kilograms. In practical terms, that means a trip in this window can still produce a true trophy shot at a heavy yellowfin, not just school-sized fish.

Albacore changes the feel of the fishery. Blue Seas Products says the albacore season normally runs from the beginning of October through the end of May, so early April is a clean fit for that fishery as well. FishTrack has also described Cape Town as having a dependable albacore bite, which helps explain why the report named albacore alongside yellowfin instead of treating it as a side note. When those two species overlap, anglers are looking at a broad pelagic bite, not a narrow, single-species run.

Skipjack adds the volume factor. Cape Town Fishing Charters lists skipjack among the local tuna species, alongside yellowfin, bigeye, bluefin and longfin, and the April report’s inclusion of skipjack suggests there was smaller tuna activity under the main push. FishingBooker’s broader April Cape Town reports also described the sea as brimful of Yellowfin Tuna, Longfin Tuna, Geelbek and Kob, with yellowtail around, pointing to offshore water that was productive beyond just tuna.

The setup fits Cape Town’s geography. Cape Boat Charters says the fishery is shaped by the meeting of the Benguela and Agulhas currents near the continental shelf and “the Canyon,” while Cape Point Tuna Charters places bigeye, yellowfin, bluefin and albacore in the same waters. Cape Town has long been a major tuna ground, with IPNLF noting that South Africa’s pole-and-line tuna fishery dates to the late 1970s and traditionally targeted yellowfin in the Cape Town area. This April readout looks like that same old pattern at work: warm water, bait concentration and a multi-species offshore bite that can deliver both headline yellowfin and steady action.