Prepping For Another Cape Cod False Albacore Season 2022
My wife Sarah really notices the first signs that summer is coming to a close here in Coastal Maine. Crickets accompany our dinner conversations on the porch. We now have to turn on the lights when we eat out there. After a couple of weeks of England-like heat, we’ve slept with the window air conditioner on just the Fan setting for the past few nights. And I become a little more distant, just mentally distracted, as my fish brain shifts into albie anticipation mode.
It’s hard on her as I’m away late August through mid October, home to get Gary the dog out to chase some birds, and then leaving for my season in North Carolina. She comes to visit and I save some days so we can get out on the boat together, but it’s not her favorite season that is fast approaching. And I’ll admit that I’m having so much fun chasing shallow water striped bass here on the Kennebec River that I’m astounded that it’s August 12 and I’m still falling asleep thinking about how to tweak the shrimp pattern that was the hot fly of the morning. Maybe after more than 10 years of migrating my business for multiple months I’m less stressed about all the work that goes into preparing for a full fall of false albacore trips?
But rest assured, albie thoughts are seditiously creeping into my consciousness at all hours, day and night. I’m updating my packing lists and checking off items on my to-do lists. I’ve got a box of reels on their way back from a tune-up and packages are arriving daily from Simms and other manufacturers as I restock Plano boxes with Hogy epoxy jigs and restore my inventory of backup Scientific Angler fly lines. My annual delivery of “albie camp garlic” from my HMH buddy Craig Uecker is due any day now (he’s so thoughtful that he gets me the goods before he comes down to fish). The Gammy 1 is headed to Portland Yacht Services for a 300-hour service on the Verado and I’m mowing the grass as short as I can, hoping this drought continues into the fall. And oh man, do I have some fly sorting to do.
I’m incredibly excited to be participating in a pilot project coordinated by the American Saltwater Guides Association tagging false albacore this fall in Vineyard and Nantucket Sound. Researchers from the New England Aquarium will be implanting acoustical tags into false albacore that we catch. To the best of our knowledge, nobody has ever done so, anywhere in the world. We know precious little about this incredibly important gamefish. Finally we have the opportunity to begin to understand more about their migratory habits, thanks to funding from Orsted, Costa Del Mar, and other industry supporters. This is truly groundbreaking work and you have an opportunity to participate if you’d like. I’ll write much more about this project and how you can be involved, soon…but the grass isn’t getting shorter on its own and those reels need to be respooled.
I do still have some open dates for Cape Cod false albacore charters in late August and the second half of September. If you’d like to afflict yourself with the madness that possesses us, I’d be happy to oblige.