You could rack up some serious roaming charges chasing false albacore around the world. Albies, better known elsewhere as “Little Tunny,” have a global distribution. They run alongside bluefin in the Mediterranean, flee black marlin in the Pacific, and follow shrimp boats like dogs begging for scraps in the Gulf. Yet, nowhere in this extensive range are the albies as celebrated as in the Northeast.
Our enlightened anglers look beyond the albie’s poor quality as table fare to enjoy the extraordinary speed, strength, and challenge of presenting a lure during their fast-moving feeding frenzies. When the albies show in our local area codes, the word travels almost as fast as the fish themselves, so here’s what to expect from the false albacore this season.
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Not counting the ones tuna fishermen come across as bycatch, the first albies of the Northeast season come from Cape Cod. They arrive in mid-August, flushing out the summer doldrums and re-igniting the excitement of an inshore fleet that’s grown weary of small bluefish and scattered school stripers.
Over the two-month-long albie season on the Cape, the best action moves around, concentrating some years in Buzzards Bay, other years off the South Side. Falmouth to Hyannis is the epicenter of the bite, but fishermen looking as far east as Monomoy can be rewarded with good—though less consistent—fishing and fewer boats. The waters around Martha’s Vineyard consistently hold albies throughout the season, and for fishermen willing to make the run, Nantucket’s waters also load up with albies, with slightly less competition from other boats.
Cape Cod albies are notoriously picky, which may be a product of the shallower water where anglers encounter them or the large fleets that pursue them once the word is out. Therefore, anglers are wise to have a deep roster of presentations. Long-casting epoxy-style jigs are the standard offerings for albies everywhere, but when the fish are finicky, a soft plastic like the Albie Snax or 4-inch RonZ often gets more bites.
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With Sakonnet Point at one end and Watch Hill at the other, the smallest state has big albie opportunities. Albie interest around Rhode Island begins to spike around the Ides of August, says avid kayak angler Tyler Richman of the Saltwater Edge.
“By the last week of August, you should expect some action, but that’s not the case every year,” Richman says. “The peak is usually sometime in the first couple weeks of September.”
The conditions can also affect when the albies show—when the water is warm and clean, the fish will move in. They rarely arrive when the water is dirty or stained, say Richman.
The epicenter of the Ocean State’s albie run varies from year to year. “Some years,” Richman explains, “the fish never stop moving and you have to run and gun to find them on any given day.” Other years, fish will settle into an area with a strong supply of bait and stick around for weeks at a time.
According to Richman, this is especially true in Narragansett Bay. During years when the water temperature and quality are favorable to albies, they will run up the bay to gorge on the abundant baitfish for a few weeks before vanishing. He starts looking for albies around oceanside points before moving into “smaller” waters.
The latest reasonable shot at an Ocean State albie varies widely from year to year. If there are no major storms, it’s not unusual to find November albies. However, a good storm in October can dirty the water and send the fish packing.
Rhode Island anglers are more apt to blind-cast when targeting albies, says Richman. “When I fish the Cape or Connecticut, I generally don’t see people casting unless they are on breaking fish. Here, you’ll see surf, kayak, and boat guys casting for hours on end even if there is seemingly no action.”
Richman theorizes that the abundance of baitfish-holding structure in Rhode Island makes staking out an area and casting away an effective strategy. He also advises anglers to occasionally try a “low and slow” retrieve, letting the bait drop in the water column before retrieving it back at a slower/moderate pace. On some days, this is what the albies want.
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While running hot and cold in recent seasons, during good years, the waters off Montauk Point force anglers to choose between running down schools of blitzing albies or schools of blitzing stripers. We can all only hope for such a dilemma.
Captain Peter Douma of Windward Outfitters notes that albies have become the most sought-after fish by fly fishermen visiting Montauk in the fall.
In a “typical” year, Douma says the albies arrive by Labor Day, but some years, they may not move in until much later. For captains like Douma who don’t rack the albie rods until the bitter end, albies present opportunities into November. “The last few years, from late November almost to Thanksgiving, they’ve been pretty good,” Douma says. “They may disappear in late October, then make a last push in November, as long as the water temperature stays in the mid-50s.”
In Montauk, bay anchovies ranging from 1 to 3 inches fuel the albie bite. Douma also encounters sand eels, silversides, and the tiny, nearly translucent baitfish colorfully referred to as “snot bait,” but anchovies are the primary bait.
While epoxy-style jigs rule for light-tackle anglers in New England, Douma uses the Albie Snax, rigged with a 3/0 live bait hook, almost exclusively. On the fly, he favors Surf Candies and a slider pattern that presents similarly to an Albie Snax. “Most of the albies my clients have caught on the boat have come on that fly.
Douma doesn’t get too hung up on color, but tends toward pink, white, and burnt orange.
When Montauk’s albie bite fires up, it’s better than anywhere in the Northeast. One of Douma’s most memorable outings was last November when a client landed 16 fish with a 10-pound average in 6 hours.
Captain Peter Douma
Windward Outfitters
windwardoutfitters.com
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Watching for birds is standard operating procedure no matter where you fish for albies, though the birds off Cape Lookout, North Carolina, would be especially difficult to miss.
Just like in the waters from Jersey to Cape Cod, terns and small gulls point the way to Tar Heel State albies, but fishermen off Cape Lookout are especially tuned in to the behavior of pelicans.
While pelicans regularly divebomb baitfish from above, filling their pouches with bunker or mullet, around the albies and the anchovies the albies are eating, the pelicans sit on the water’s surface in tight groups. Last November, Captain Terry Nugent showed us how to motor just close enough to those groups to push the pelicans off. The albies then drove the bait to the surface in an all-out feeding frenzy.
The late-fall run of false albacore around Cape Lookout has made it a popular destination among fly and light-tackle anglers since the 1990s. Fly-fishing luminaries, such as Lefty Kreh and Flip Pallot, made regular trips to these waters, where the albies were said to be bigger, dumber, and more abundant than the ones from New Jersey to Massachusetts.
After chasing albies around Cape Cod from mid-August to October, Nugent relocates to Morehead City to extend his albie season past Thanksgiving. He tallies impressive daily catches throwing epoxy-style jigs around sitting pelicans and to more traditional albie feeds.
My day of albie fishing with Nugent last fall was on the slower side for Cape Lookout, a product of the calm, sunny conditions. For a “slow” day, we had plenty of casts into feeding fish and caught a half-dozen albies.
The North Carolina albie fishing improves with a northeast wind and a bit of chop. This further concentrates the baitfish, making them helpless among the shoals off Cape Lookout. It’s under these conditions that, with a group of four anglers, Nugent has had 100-fish days.
Nugent advises a slightly slower retrieve speed for the North Carolina albies than he uses back home in Massachusetts. He doesn’t want the jig to skip but, instead, kick a bit below the surface.
Captain Terry Nugent
Riptide Charters
riptidecharters.com
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There’s a fine line between a fish being easier to catch in some areas and a fish being so easy to catch that the challenge, and much of the fun, is removed from the experience. Florida albie fishing flirts with that line.
The first time I experienced it, Captain Mike Holliday cautioned against leaving the fly dangling over the side of the boat, citing multiple occasions when clients who had done that lost expensive rod and reel combos to hyper-aggressive Floridian false albacore.
We started the day filling the livewell with “chummies,” what Holliday collectively called the 1- to 2-inch pilchards, threadfins, sardines, and other silvery peanut-bunker-looking baitfish collected with his fine-mesh cast net. After a short run out of St. Lucie Inlet, Holliday pulled back over a small structure, dipped a handful of baits, and told us to watch. He threw the baits a few feet behind his Pathfinder skiff and, within seconds, albies appeared behind the boat. Casting a 2-inch white baitfish imitation drew immediate hookups. They were my first fly-caught false albacore, though it felt like I’d found a cheat code to get it done.
The albies ran large, with a few fish eclipsing 15 pounds and nearly all of them over 10. After an hour or so, Holliday asked if we’d had enough and, surprisingly, we had. You wouldn’t want to base an entire trip around albie fishing in Florida, if only because there are so many different species to target. Plus, even the most albie-fever-afflicted angler in the Northeast could lose interest in roll-casting flies to chum-fed albies 10 feet off the boat. That type of quick-fix, automatic fishing is best in moderation; otherwise, you might permanently warp your idea of “good fishing.” Live chumming for Florida albies is instead the perfect garnish to a main course of targeting sailfish offshore or snook in the backwaters.
To see albie fishing at its Florida finest, Captain Cody Rubner of High Roller Guide Service says May to August is the peak. While albies are present before and after that window, the late spring and summer bring out the biggest fish, with 20-pounders not out of the question.
Captain Cody Rubner
High Roller Guide Service
highrollerguideservice.com
Captain Mike Holliday
Fish the Treasure Coast
captmikeholliday.com
