Better Late Than Never, Albies!

They took a little while to get here this year, but that's okay. Now that they're around in great numbers, it's party time! False albacore don't migrate up and down the coast like striped bass do. There's no "albie run". There is no question that the baitfish run effects their appearance, but that's different. They come in from the gulf stream when conditions suit them, and sometimes they don't. Albies are never a sure bet, one year there can seemingly be thousands out there every week from the September even into November, one year they may show later a leave earlier, and one year they may not show at all. Four years ago albies legitimately never showed up in CT or RI. None. Zip. Zero. Zilch.
With September 15th rolling by with little more than sporadic albie activity in RI and little to no activity in CT, I was thinking this would be a mediocre season. Well, I was wrong.

And to that I say, better late than never, false albacore!

Photo courtesy Patrick Barone

For almost a week the fish were all over the place and I wasn't really able to get after them, unlike last year where I was one of the first guys out there and got a fish on the very first day I tried.

Patrick Barone and I ignored the small craft advisory on Monday to chase albies. He had a few good days targeting them already, I had not. I was desperate to get one before going to Montana, partly because the weather on either side of my trip is much worse than the weather during it... of course. Regardless, neither of us are fair weather fisherman. It's a good thing we aren't the albies were everywhere. We really pretty much found some amount of false albacore in every cove. They were definitely favoring backwaters, likely because the bait was all sheltering there. We found some right in a bunch of moored sail boats, which would have been a heck of a lot of fun had we hooked any. 

Patrick got the skunk off the boat really quickly. It took a while for me to connect, and it was on a spinning rod, but boy did it feel good to get the first of the year. 

Eventually we were in them really well, just surrounded by feeding schools. Just because you're surrounded by albies doesn't mean it is easy to catch them. To make things harder on myself, after I got one more on the epoxy jig I decided to commit to the fly. 

Photo courtesy Patrick Barone

There were a few fairly prolonged chaotic blitzes that I totally screwed the pooch in. I can cast in the wind, accuracy and distance weren't a huge problem. But I didn't bring my stripping basket so my line was blowing all over and tangling either in itself or on various extremities of the boat. All the while Patrick was getting fish on spinning gear, which made it very hard to resist just picking that rod back up.

 Eventually though I hooked up. The line tangled around the trolling motor and Patrick and I both struggled to free it while I gave the fish minimal pressure. Throughout much of the fight, the harder you pull the harder the fish pulls. By keeping a steep rod angle and giving as much slack as I could I kept what I thought was a worked up albie from tearing off like, well, a worked up albie. Well, when we got it to the boat we really knew why it had been so manageable. It was a bluegish. Patrick and I had both already caught one striper each. Not much after I got my bluefish Patrick got one too, so we both had the inshore slam going.

The fish started to disperse a bit as the tide got close to low. we drifted out further than we had been before, and although I wasn't seeing much fish surfacing I kept casting and casting hoping for a tug of the right kind. Then, out of nowhere, an albie ate my little pink surf candy right by the boat. It took most of the trip, but I finally got one on the fly.

Photo Courtesy Patrick Barone. 

Thanks Patrick for being crazy enough to fish on such a gnarly day, it's always a pleasure. I'm sure this won't be our last adventure this season.

I'll be out again after these oh so seductive light tackle speedsters at least once more before I leave. Whether I find the time to write about it or not is a whole other thing. Expect posts to be short an sweet until next week. Then they should be long and full of fantastic photos, and I'm not just talking about Montana. The fall run is upon us, and it truly has become what I live for.

My heart beats for the blitz.