False Albacore
Fishing For Albies
Chasing albies is a hoot and nobody will love it more than you. It’s a very visual experience, which is part of the reason why I’m so captivated by them. It’s hunting in the sense that we search for signs – birds working on the horizon, bait nervously trembling on the slick surface of the water, and the fish themselves busting in a way that is distinctly tunoid. I always prefer to look for pods of fish that we can target, but we also spend some time blind casting in productive spots or when they are popping up but lack organization to their movements. Sometimes they eat like a lab puppy and other times they can be incredibly picky.
The typical search is reasonably close to shore – within a few miles of the beaches, rocky islands, bays, harbors, salt ponds, and shoals. Some days we start right at the entrance to which ever harbor where we launch and never go more than five miles from there. Other days we cover a lot of water - all around Martha’s Vineyard, Cuttyhunk, Woods Hole, Hyannis, Monomoy, Buzzards Bay. Sometimes the wind is down and other times it is humping. On days with slick water and bright sun, the fish can have us changing flies or lures every three casts as we franticly work to figure out what they want to eat. In rough water, all of their inhibitions can disappear, and they can chow anything we offer them.
Historically, the most consistent fishing takes place in September but there were still fish around beyond the end of October in 2018 and 2017. 2019 was different in many ways, and the fish really disappeared by October 15. Weekends can be foolishly busy but by October there are far fewer people chasing them. If we avoid Saturday, we’ll be happy, but if that’s the day that works, we’ll find our own fish. Sometimes it pays to fish with the fleet, but more often than not I’ve found success away from the crowds.
I grew up fishing and sailing around Cape Cod and my earliest experiences running boats as a job were on these waters, so I know there’s a lot of nostalgia tied up in my passion for the Cape and Islands. My first love is sightcasting to shallow water fish of any kind and I hate being away from Maine in September and October, but I choose to do this over anything else. There’s a sense of extending your summer…fishing 75 degree water, stopping at Larson’s Fish Market in Menemsha for lunch, watching the Steamship ferries transit back and forth to the islands, and catching the most beautiful fish in the world. It's a different scene from Maine and I love the change for two months. I’d really like to share this experience with you. I know you too will be smitten.