When the albies roll into town, many peoples’ lives are totally upended. Eleven-foot surf rods sit lonely in basement corners, with nobody keeping them company except spiders. Wooden metal-lip and needlefish plugs collect layers of dust in the garage. The grass grows long, and the laundry pile looks like the surf in a November nor’easter. Marriages are strained and sick days are used up. Forget about that Christmas visit to the in-laws in Wisconsin—vacation days evaporate faster than the saltwater puddles on our car mats in the heat of August.
What are the reasons for this obsessive mania? What causes striper addicts to forget about chasing 50-pound autumn cows to go after 7-pound albies?
As a hybrid fisherman-biologist, I enjoy fishing to recalibrate. I like being on the water to avoid work, projects around the house, and those otherwise “responsible” uses of time that can instead be spent fishing. I also enjoy observing and analyzing the conditions while I’m fishing and the fish that I chase. Please excuse my biologese as I explain, from a science guy’s point of view, the physical aspects of what is so amazing about false albacore.
Little tunny, as they are also called, don’t grow to the size of stripers nor do they carry the culinary reputation of black sea bass; however, they are certainly built for speed. It seems that every characteristic of these finned bullets contributes to a blistering speed known to cause reels to smoke and seize. Let’s dissect the incredible Euthynnus alletteratus and explore their schematics.
A false albacore has a tapered shape described as fusiform: tapered at the front and growing in circumference (thickness) for a bit, then steadily narrowing off toward the tail, much like the fuselage of a jet plane or submarine. This shape pushes water away from much of the fish’s body, reducing friction that would also reduce its capacity for speed.
The caudal fin (the tail) is different from most inshore fish that anglers target and is described by ichthyologists as “lunate.” Notice the similarity to “lunar,” as it looks just like a crescent moon a few days before or after the new moon. This fin creates propulsion for this magnificent beast. The high-aspect ratio, tall and narrow, is for sustained speed over long distances. This contrasts with low-aspect ratio caudal fins of striped bass and fluke that have adapted for ambush feeding. An albie’s caudal fin is also stiffer than a heavy-action rod, so it doesn’t lose efficiency under the water pressure dealt by high speeds.
An albie’s swimming style is called “thunniform,” which means tuna-style in that a fish swimming this way has an unflexing body for stability. Its body remains stiff and straight, while only the caudal fin moves side to side and propels the fish forward. This is opposite of anguilliform (eel style), in which the whole body undulates back and forth.
Just in front of the caudal fin, on the caudal peduncle (the narrow “handle” between the fish’s body and the tail), are a series of small, triangular finlets. These produce turbulence that directs pressure off the fish’s body.
The pectoral fins are just behind the gills, along the horizontal midline of the albie’s body. They stabilize the fish horizontally and can change its direction from swimming vertically, allowing it to quickly dart to the surface to grab an anchovy and then zip back down to safety. These appendages also have a long and thin high-aspect ratio that are effective without adding much drag. Each one can be retracted to fit into a narrow depression called a sulcus, allowing the fin to recede, becoming flush to the skin of the rest of the fish’s body and further reducing drag when traveling at high speeds.
By now, you should recognize a recurring theme with fins and see the similarity with an albie’s dorsal fin at its topmost surface. This fin provides horizontal stability, like the fletching of an arrow. It also has a high-aspect ratio and fits into a sulcus that resembles a slit on the top of the fish. Think of a stiletto-style switchblade knife, with a blade that fits into the handle and can pop out with the push of a button.
If you’re an albie addict, you’ve probably noticed that the fish’s gill plates do not open and close like a striped bass when it’s held out of the water (not for too long, I hope!). Albies don’t pump water over their gill filaments (those feathery red strands inside the gill covers). Instead, tunny respiration is called ram ventilation. The fish swims with its mouth open, without ever stopping, to force oxygen over its gills. This is different from the way most fish breathe. For example, stripers can sit still in the water without negative effects. For albies, however, the faster they go, more oxygenated water passes over the gill filaments; this way, they can take in that oxygen to burn more fuel. This is why albies should be released differently than stripers. They are best released by aiming them at the water and tossing them straight down into it.
If you have ever harvested an albie for the table, you probably noticed that the meat was dark red, in contrast to the white or pinkish meat of most fish we generally keep. White muscle is for quick bursts of movement rather than sustained ones. Fish composed of white meat are much more sedentary than albies and tire more quickly. An albie’s red flesh is due to high amounts of myoglobin in the muscle. This protein, like hemoglobin in the blood, carries oxygen. More myoglobin holds more oxygen in the muscles, which supports aerobic respiration, meaning more energy conversion for constant fast swimming.
This muscle is also highly vascularized, with extra-abundant blood vessels to supply fuel and oxygen. An albie’s red muscle has three times the number of capillaries, the smallest blood vessels supplying the cells with oxygen, than in white muscle. The red meat also has more (and larger) mitochondria, the organelles called ”the powerhouse of the cell”. This structure oxidizes fatty acids for energy, actually a very similar process to the one used by your car or boat to burn fuel. This also helps avoid fatigue and ensure a quick recovery after a long fight, compared to that of predominantly white-muscled fish. That’s why albies don’t quit. They kick up a plume of water like a Jet Ski while an angler’s trying to land it. That cow striper you were bragging about on Facebook would have given up long before.
Albies are also semi-warm blooded (homeothermic). This allows them to keep up their frantic lifestyle at the same pace in warmer or cooler water, and also enables them to zip down to Florida before the first snow. Their arteries are positioned so that they’re heated by that red muscle and insulated by a layer of fatty tissue. It’s not too different from the heat-exchanger system you may be using for your house.
Albies are also known for their incredible eyesight. Many claim they’re the pickiest fish around, able to detect a monofilament fishing line in choppy water and the slightest flaws in that epoxy anchovy fly you spent a half-hour tying. Their large, heated eyes produce excellent vision with great movement detection. As any albie fanatic will tell you, they can spot and lock onto ridiculously small bait (or flies) at quite a distance while swimming at 40 miles per hour and at 30 tail strokes per second.
False albacore are a prime reason that I think evolutionary biology is the most interesting subject that occupies our feeble human brains—it’s environmentally-driven engineering. And no fish in our inshore waters is as well engineered to thrill anglers as the albie.
