Western Connecticut
By Captain Chris Elser
Eight Weeks of Albies
Without a doubt, September and October are my favorite months to fish the western Long Island Sound. It’s not only because false albacore arrive, though that is a major reason. It’s prime time for fly- and light-tackle anglers because there are many baitfish in our waters easily imitated with flies and lures.
Peanut bunker and anchovies are the primary baits to mimic in the fall, and their sizes can range anywhere from an inch up to 6 inches, so it is important to identify what the fish are feeding on. When they are on small baits, albies can be very picky. They are especially tricky when feeding on micro baits, so I have a few go-to solutions ready for every trip.
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When I can’t really see the bait, I know it’s time to cast 1.5-inch anchovy fly patterns. I fish them using an intermediate line on a 9-weight setup. On spinning gear, my preferred lure is a small epoxy jig. I like the Game On Lures Exo jig in the ¾-ounce size, which is about 2.5 inches long. This small lure casts well on a fast-action 7-foot rod and 20-pound smooth braid. Another trick I use when fish are feeding on tiny baits is to remove the hooks on an epoxy jig and add 18 inches of 15-pound fluorocarbon leader tied to a small anchovy fly pattern.
I don’t experiment much with lure colors, but during the albie rush, I prefer to have some pink in the lure compared to my choice for lure color when it comes to striped bass and bluefish: everything white. Albies definitely have a thing for the color pink, and it’s made a difference for me.
When I find albies feeding on larger baits like peanut bunker, I switch to either a 1-ounce jig or another favorite, the 5-inch Albie Snax, which casts well for a weightless soft plastic. Once again, I like both in pink but have had success with plain old white as well.
Fly anglers have many options when albies are dialed in on peanut bunker, though a flatwing in a size similar to the bait works really well. While patterns and colors matter, the most critical factor to success is how accurately you cast. Unlike stripers and bluefish, an albie will not turn around and grab your lure if you cast behind it; the lure or fly must be presented several feet in front of where you anticipate the fish are headed.
Patience is also a good practice with albies. Try to observe the fish feeding for a bit at first to see if they are moving in a pattern from one location to where they were minutes ago. If this is the case, it’s worthwhile to shut the engine off and wait the fish out, but sometimes you do need to get to the feeds before they stop. Just make sure not to run over the fish and create a big wake when doing so. Make a stealthy approach, and your success ratio will improve greatly. I once had to leave a blitzing school of jumbo-size albies thanks to two anglers on PWCs who were blasting into the schools with one hand on the throttle and rod in the other. After that, it was a complete waste of time trying to get those fish to come up again, so I moved on.
Last season, the hardtails saved me some fuel expenses, which was a huge relief. We caught fish from West Haven to Westport on a regular basis, and they were often very tight to shore. The previous year, all the fish stayed out in the mid-Sound waters between Mt. Sinai and Northport, usually in over 100 feet of water.
Catching albies in shallow water is like hooking a big bonefish on the flats; you get screeching runs that are longer than usual since the fish can’t go down. You had better have your spool full of 20-pound braid when you set out for shallow-water false albacore, along with a reel capable of handling several blistering runs.
The 2023 season brought albies from the beginning of September through the first week of November, which gave most anglers a good shot at them for two months. I also noticed there were more fish on peanut bunker, but it didn’t last long until they switched to targeting bay anchovies again. The 2024 season was an entirely different story.
You will find striped bass and bluefish in the same mix as feeding albies when the bait source is peanut bunker, but if your goal is a little tunny, avoid the urge to add wire to save your lures from bluefish. An albie will see wire from a mile away and avoid it.
Captain Chris Elser is the owner/operator of Elser Guide Service in Western Long Island Sound, and a monthly columnist at On The Water Magazine.
Eastern Connecticut
By Josh Rayner
Albies, Bass, and Tog
This is the time of year most saltwater anglers in the Northeast wish they could bottle and savor throughout the season, particularly in eastern Long Island Sound and Connecticut’s inshore waters. Though August was fun, with lots of small bait to fuel bass blitzes most mornings, September is when many inshore anglers shift their focus and seek surface feeds with a specific-looking “splash.”
False albacore will likely make themselves known in the eastern Sound, Fishers Island Sound, and along Rhode Island beaches this month, if they haven’t already. Year after year, it seems that the trick to having lights-out albie days is to go early and often. By early, I mean being on the water within the first few days of their arrival. It’s hard to know exactly when they will arrive because it can vary drastically each season. Albies usually become a target for me around the second week of September, but some years they have shown much earlier.
On September 7, 2023, I had a kayak-fishing client who wanted to do some bottom fishing, and other than a few keeper sea bass, he didn’t care what else we caught. I took him to an area with scattered hard structure, which is also a notorious early-season albie pitstop. As we headed out in kayaks to a few of the small reefs peppered around the area, we noticed sparse surface action in the distance, but it was hard to tell exactly what we were seeing. I knew there was the possibility of albies, but also knew we were about a week ahead of their usual push into the Sound. Nonetheless, I had rods ready to go with both Albie Snax and Hogy Epoxy Jigs, just in case we got a chance at some hardtails. As the morning went on, the surface feeds became a bit more substantial and closer to our bottom-fishing grounds, but it still wasn’t enough to go chasing them.
At this point, it was apparent that they were albies, but seemingly not too many of them. As our time on the water ended, my client was starting to feel the effects of the heat and was ready to call it a day. On our way back into port, all hell broke loose. Albies were crashing through schools of bait in every direction we looked, with some blitzes popping up in between our two kayaks. My client got a second wind and was able to have some fun with a pair of albies before ultimately dropping them. I accompanied him back to the launch, secured his kayak on the trailer and the gear in the vehicle, and then headed back out solo for one of my best albie trips to date. I lost track of how many I landed, lost, and missed. They were gorging on bay anchovies, which is typical, and very small squid, which I would never have guessed if several albies hadn’t regurgitated them onto the deck of my kayak.
Amber-colored Albie Snax worked great that day, along with larger green epoxy jigs, which made no sense because the bait was small and pinkish in color, but the fish always seem to prefer the green jig early on. This same early September day, one of my kayak-fishing buddies had similar results about 15 miles further west into the Sound, where he spent the morning striper fishing. Out of nowhere, albies showed up in force.
Albies are, for lack of a better term, a novelty here in New England. We are lucky enough to target them for a short time in the fall, but in addition to catching, there is the “figuring them out” side of things. No matter how dialed in you may feel when it comes to finding albies and getting them to bite, they will disabuse you of that notion faster than any other fish. Albies are pelagic, and “use” structure only when it benefits them in corralling bait. If the bait goes elsewhere on the tide or with a storm, the albies don’t hang around. Albies themselves can drive bait out of an area, then may wind up on Long Island’s North Shore or much further west into the Sound in a matter of hours. They are the ultimate “should have been here yesterday” species. As the fall progresses, they can cause frustration, becoming far pickier and, some days, completely ignoring the usual offerings.
Fly anglers seem to do better in this stage of the season, being able to match smaller baits that are nearly impossible to mimic with spinning gear outside of a casting-egg-and-fly rig. Make note of the tides you do best with albies in a specific location and try to time them to your advantage on future outings. Even if you miss that magical first week or so of these fish being present locally, keep your lighter spinning rods ready right through the first week or two of November because you will get more chances at them, but knowing when is anybody’s guess.
Come September, striped bass fishing is still going strong and, depending on where the fish migrating from up north find themselves, can make or break the rest of the season. Our resident summer fish are still milling around boulder fields, rips, river mouths, and beaches. With various bait sources available, you will likely find fish in multiple areas behaving very differently. Keep a good mix of artificials on hand, including small Krocodile spoons, topwaters ranging from 5 to 9 inches, plastics to mimic a variety of small baitfish, flutter spoons, and Gravity Tackle 13.5-inch GT Eels in a variety of colors with multiple rigging options. Try to match the hatch the best you can and then match the energy level of the fish as well. As we progress into October, the bass will become more tightly schooled, and if you find one fish, you’ve found a bunch.
If bigger baitfish like bunker and hickory shad hang around through October and into November, the bass will stay as well. In the fall of 2023, we didn’t have that luxury in eastern Connecticut; it was almost all schoolies to nearly slot-sized fish in most locations. The primary baitfish were bay anchovies and some peanut bunker, but far fewer peanuts than we hoped for.
During late October and early November, though, I happened to find a sand flat with sparse eelgrass that consistently had huge pods of schoolies blitzing on anchovies and silversides flushing out of the shallows on the ebb. On calm days, I stood up in the kayak and sight-fished them when they weren’t actively chasing the bait. I also stood as they were blitzing to get a sense of how many fish there were. To my surprise, each time I did this, I saw a handful of fish that were well over 40 inches underneath the more active schoolies; they were picking up the stunned or dispatched baitfish as they drifted to the bottom. Culling those fish was just about impossible, but I did put a client on one by instructing him exactly when and where to place his Albie Snax right in front of that individual fish.
I’ve learned to expect the unexpected with stripers in the fall and to play the hand that is dealt, even if it means imparting a different style of fishing than I’m used to or trying different water—it isn’t always cut and dry. When the things that should be happening aren’t, that’s when I learn the most.
Tautog have become a prime fall target for me in recent years and are very popular among clients who have joined me. Ninety-five percent of the time I do not use an anchor, and for many reasons, I never anchor clients. Instead, I use the MirageDrive 180 and rudder on a Hobie kayak to make subtle adjustments to keep position. Wind direction, wave activity, and tide all play a role in where you can effectively fish like this, but when you find that sweet spot, it’s a total blast. Tog can be found anywhere there is structure, so you don’t have to follow the fleet. In addition to some trial and error, using detailed charts, specifically ones with three-dimensional sonar overlays, and making notes of oddball rock structures to visit can help you find good tautog spots. After the first couple weeks of tog season, some areas may become picked over, but that’s when you’ll be happy you found those secondary spots. To make tog fishing more interesting, drop down some artificials in place of green crabs once you get the bite going, just to see how they’ll react. They seem to like a green epoxy jig snapped up off the bottom and a green pumpkin Z-Man TRD CrawZ on a football head slowly crawled along the edge of the structure.
I’d like to thank everyone who joined me on the water for a kayak trip, purchased hair jigs, called on me for kayak rigging/repair, followed me on social media (CT Fish Nerd), and read my articles here in On The Water. I will be running saltwater trips into mid-November, then freshwater trips until it freezes if you have the itch to go kayak fishing.
Josh Rayner is owner/operator and kayak fishing guide at CT Fish Nerd in Eastern Long Island Sound, and a monthly columnist at On The Water Magazine. You can follow him on Instagram @ct_fish_nerd.
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