Flashback: My First Albie

 It's worth looking back from time to time.

In 2016, a fresh-faced and wide-eyed former version of myself was early into the saltwater fly fishing rabbit hole. Now 8 years into that journey (or fall?) I can look back on it with very new perspectives and a more refined sensibility. So, though I've told this story on this blog before, I think it could be worth telling again. 

One of my enablers in those early days was my friend Mark Alpert. I met Mark at a small pond just a short walk from my house, a very secluded and hard to access spot that neither of us had ever expected to see another angler in. We talked carp. Mark was just getting into targeting the species- quite obsessively, in fact. We exchanged numbers and started fishing together fairly regularly- at first for carp, then saltwater. Mark has a beautiful and very well kept Amesbury dory, a classic New England boat. The original was built by C. H. Lancaster in Amesbury, Massachusetts. Similar to the Chamberlain dory, the Amesbury trades some row-ability for somewhat better stability. Mark's Amesbury is a 16ft version, very seaworthy and an extremely fishy boat, and the platform on which many memorable experiences I've had occurred; not least of which was catching my first ever little tunny. 

It was October 3rd. 2016 year that featured excellent false albacore fishing to the anglers plying the waters East of the Connecticut River close to shore. At the time I could probably fit everything I knew about the species and catching them on one side of a notecard. I'd never even fished with them around. There were a few slots in one of my fly boxes dedicated to albie flies... at the time, very crude and poorly tied attempts at imitating flies I'd seen online. Mark was going to put me on the fish though, and when we launched that morning my anticipation was high. It was a place I'd never been, though I now know it well. We were towards the eastern end of what had formerly been called by some local fly anglers "bonito alley". It had been some years since large numbers of bonito had frequented the area, but little tunny had filled their place quite nicely. Before the dory was even in the water I was looking for targets. Standing on a wood bulkhead, I watched a 30-something inch striped bass cruise by. This sort of thing became a staple of launching with Mark. I'd either see or catch a fish at the launch before the boat was in the water. My eagerness to get fishing was largely to blame. I couldn't stand to be near that water without casting into it. Though that need eventually faded, for a little while boat launch fish were sort of a hallmark of incoming good luck. October 3rd was one of the days that cemented that trend. 

We motored out through a no-wake zone toward blitzes that were already visible. Small flocks of gulls franticly called and swirled over equally small pods of little tunny slashing through small silversides. These sparse schools presented a few mediocre shots for a giddy angler without fully developed casting accuracy and distance. Eventually the fish dispersed a bit and Mark moved us further east. Soon we had some bigger pods here and there. It's hard for me to recall every detail of the moments right before my first albie, but here's what I do recall: I had one an extremely grungy fly, a no-name creation that was sort of like a backward Clouser. It had brass dumbbell eyes tied on the bend side of the shank rather than the top, so it didn't ride hook point up, and it had while bucktail for the belly and olive for the back with a little bit of flash in between. I still have that fly actually, and it is darned ugly. Very little thought or knowledge went into its design, but it was about to get eaten by a little tunny. The cast was a blind one, they hadn't broken in a little while. I came tight very close to the end of the cast, maybe only four or five feet into the retrieve. The fish then thrashed violently at the surface, making both Mark and I think it was a bluefish. I've never seen an albie behave like this since, it was completely uncharacteristic of the species. After a few moments, it remembered who it was and treated me to the classic long, hard and fast little tunny run. I was floored. The energy in that moment is still palpable years later. Your first albie on a fly isn't something you forget easily. It wasn't done with surprises though, as it soon charged the boat. Perhaps more memorable than that initial run, I vividly remember looking down in that clear Eastern Long Island Sound water and seeing my orange running line maybe ten to twelve feet down. The fish had already gone beneath us and kept going. I swept the rod around the bow, cleared the line, and came tight for the fish to scream into the backing yet again. The final challenge was a backing overlap that I had to clear by hand while Mark motored to keep the fish from running too hard while I had the line fouled. There were plenty of moments where that fish could have come off, but it didn't. Landing the fish was even more of a blur than the moments leading up to the hookup, but my first look at the fish was another standout. Those vibrant greens and blues and wild pattern rival the beauty of many of our prettiest fish. I had caught my first albie.

In the time since, Mark and I have had many a phenomenal day chasing hardtails on that boat and a few on foot as well. Of course, that one will always stand out, and I'll forever owe Mark for breaking me into the world of flash fishing for New England's miniature tuna. 

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