Fish on: Going after Fat Alberts

Fall has come to the local waters with falling air and water temperatures, especially at night, signaling that something else is coming.

As a lifelong light tackle fisherman I can hardly wait for the fall migration runs of bluefish, bass and false albacore to begin so I can chase schools of breaking fish. So far, the bluefish are right on target, but the striped bass have yet to show in numbers.

Even at Montauk, most bass are being taken on live bait or by trolling or jigging deep. However, this week the third member of the fall triumvirate, false albacore (or  “albies,” “little tunny” or “Fat Alberts”), had a great showing off the Montauk Lighthouse after having been active near Shinnecock Inlet for about a week.

These small members of the tuna family are fabulous game fish. When hooked, they make stronger long runs than the fabled bonefish of the tropics, taking hundreds of feet of line out and doggedly fighting down deep when drawn near to the boat. On a fly rod an 8 pound fish is a 10 minute fight at least.

Last week we had four days of heavy east winds before finally switching to the southwest. Our long-time guide and friend, Ernie French, thought we should give things a try and I mentioned it to Mike McConnell. Mike has been nursing a wrist injury on his casting arm and felt he shouldn’t be casting yet, but he said he wanted to go to watch the action.

By 7 a.m. we were in Ernie’s skiff at Montauk, and off we went all the way to the town of Montauk on a bumpy ocean. After about an hour of looking for feeding fish — there were plenty of birds flying around — we finally found a small pod of bluefish that we worked for about 30 minutes. Action really dropped there so we headed east to the lighthouse area just as the tide reached dead low.

When we got there the place suddenly lit up with several schools of albies blitzing, interspersed with some large bluefish. The wind had really started up with the tide change and fly casting was hard. Finally I hooked up and landed a nice albie followed by a 10-pound bluefish.

Observer Mike looked all around and didn’t see his wife or his doctor anywhere close, so decided he had had enough watching and grabbed a rigged flyrod, tempting fate with his wrist injury by casting at the fish. After he had hooked two fish that pulled loose he took a break and let me fish alone. The whole time the birds were going crazy, fish were surface feeding everywhere and I got lucky and landed and released five more albies over the next hour.

Mike couldn’t stand it and got sucked back into the action and immediately hooked up, landing a nice albie. I promised him I wouldn’t tell his wife, Georgie, or his MD about both his inability to ignore feeding fish and casting without a medical clearance and I never uttered a word about it.

Here’s How Corner: Many will want to try for albies with light spinning tackle, so here’s how: 7 foot rods with 4-5 series reels and spooled with a full load of 12 pound mono or braid will do the trick for these speedsters plus any bluefish or stripers who hit the lures.

Albies have keen eyesight, so I recommend a 3 to 4 foot piece of 30 pound test fluorocarbon leader, which is practically impossible to see in the water, and a variety of lures. Several of the most effective and easiest to cast are silver-colored Kastmasters, Krocodile Spoons and, my favorite, a Deadly Dick Lure with silver or blue tape on it. The albacore are feeding on very small bay anchovies so you want your lures to be slim-lined with no hook adornments, such as feathers, and in the 1/2 to 3/4 ounce range but no larger!

Check Jack’s Marine for these lures. To see what they look like go to terminaltackle.com.

When you see fish feeding on the surface or lots of birds diving on small swirls, get your boat upwind of the fish, or uptide depending on  whichever is stronger, and cast over the school going past a scant 10 feet or so.

Start your retrieve at a goodly pace immediately but not so fast that the lure breaks the surface of the water and keep it coming to the boat. Albacore will chase the lure a long way and will hit it within feet of the boat, so crank it all the way in before casting again.

If you hook up, the fish will dictate the fight, running until it gets tired and turns. Then it will most likely run toward the boat, and the slack line will make you think you have lost it, but crank like the devil to get tight on the fish again. As the albie wears down it will dive deep and take you around the boat in circles until it comes to the surface beating the water with its tail.

Carefully bring the fish alongside and net it or grab its convenient “handle,” the thin part of the torso just forward of the tail, and hoist it aboard.

Albies should be released since they’re not good table fare and are fragile out of water. Unhook the fish quickly, take your photos and release it carefully in the following simple manner: Holding the fish’s head down with your hand around the “handle,” drop the fish over the side of the boat from about 3 feet and it will enter like a high diver and go down 2 feet or so and blast away from the boat like nothing ever happened. Believe me, it’s a great sight to watch as they sprint away.

Finally, the places to try for fall albies all involve moving tides so the end of each tide at Eastern Plains Point, the Sluiceway, the rips on the north side of Plum Island and Plum Gut are all likely spots to find these elusive game fish.