False Albacore Arrival Is A Harbinger Of Fall

The fall run got an unexpected jump-start from the near miss by Hurricane Henri, it would seem.

While the big blitzes of striped bass that are hallmark of the fall run in these parts haven’t moved south from the Rhode Island coast — where “fall” starts in early August — false albacore showed up in the waters off Shinnecock and Montauk late last week, giving eager light-tackle anglers a chance to stretch their legs, and drags, for the coming excitement.

It seems like not even that long ago when few anglers were even aware what false albacore were, and now they have become one of our region’s marquee targets and biggest draws for anglers from all over the world.

The evolution has been an interesting one, driven largely by the growth of fly-fishing and the interest in light-tackle, catch-and-release fishing. Years ago, false albacore were typically overlooked by fishermen who may have glimpsed them tearing the surface of the sea in the background of striped bass and bluefish blitzes, and paid them little mind, or been frustrated at how rarely they ate the large bucktails or tins they were throwing.

At some point in the 1990s, fly-fishermen discovered that albies would eat flies and were a ton of fun to catch. Non-fly-fishermen were soon turned on to the game, and the waters of Montauk and Shinnecock have been packed with anglers every September since.

The fishery has been good for anglers and guides in the last decade, as the striper blitzes in Montauk faltered from several years of poor bass spawning. Now that the bass are back, a lot of fishermen pay little heed to the feeding bass as their heads swivel in search of the next albie blow-up.

I have to chuckle a bit at the fervor an albie bite sparks in anglers, watching the mad dash of boats outside Shinnecock the other day. Anglers poised on the bow hanging on for dear life as their skipper pushes the vessel full-tilt toward the feeding fish, fishing rod cocked like the harpoon of whale hunter.

It reminds me of the insanity that the striped bass blitzes used to engender in surfcasters along Montauk’s shores. Instead of running across slime-covered rocks, casting at angles across multiple lines or over the heads of others, albie chasers gun their boats to full throttle to go 100 feet, and ram their bow straight into feeding school of fish in order to get a lure into the melee first. It’s irritating at times, dangerous at others, and always quite (eyeroll emoji).

But it’s exactly that kind of intoxicated detachment from reality that draws us to the sport, isn’t it?

On the more sober fishing grounds (figuratively speaking, but definitely not literally), the great fluke fishing has continued.

The Block Island area is still the place to be if you have the means, but fishing closer to Montauk and off Shinnecock Inlet has been pretty good as well, and there’s plenty of buy-a-ticket party boats with space to get you to the action at a very reasonable rate.

The offshore scene is still cranking away. There are bluefins from 30 pounds to 800 pounds in the waters off Block Island, and yellowfin have set up good along the 40-fathom curve. Hopefully, the remnants of Ida this week will have the same stirring effect that Henri did, and not a cooling one.

Enjoy the last licks of summer. Catch ’em up. See you out there.