A Time of False Hopes

Around this time of year, bogus sightings of false albacore begin to percolate among hopeful fishermen. Anglers eager for a tussle with the line-peeling speedster confuse pods of marauding bluefish for their prize. Eyes see what they want to see when falsie fever spreads around the East End.

False albacore arrive on their own schedule and stay as long as conditions remain satisfactory. There must be a high concentration of small bait, water temperature between 60 and 80 degrees, and no storms to dirty the water. Some years the false albacore arrive here in astounding numbers and in others, like 2015, they just sniff around the Point and quickly leave. Even when large schools of albies surface in our waters, they can disappear in a noggin-scratching flash. It’s this unpredictable behavior that makes anglers pursue the fish with great excitement and intensity. 

The false albacore is a member of the Scombridae family, which comprises tunas and mackerels. It’s the most common tuna in the Atlantic Ocean, according to Wikipedia. The “false” in false albacore refers to the widely held opinion that the flesh of the oily fish isn’t as tasty as that of a true albacore tuna. One food writer described it as a darker, brooding form of canned tuna. However, it is consumed fresh, dried, canned, smoked, and frozen in the West Indies, so to each his own. Can’t be worse than liver. While a false albacore can grow to weigh as much as 36 pounds, the ones that visit here are usually less than 12 pounds. 

Fishing for false albacore is a thrilling but sometimes frustrating experience. Albies are extremely skittish and typically submerge at the first sound of an approaching boat. Inexperienced and desperate anglers often recklessly charge into a pod of albies, wildly firing casts at the scattering fish. After several futile attempts at hooking fish and some flowery observations from nearby anglers, the quick learners usually drop this “whack-a-mole” strategy. Seasoned anglers prefer to calculate where the albies are heading, if there is a pattern, and patiently wait there with engines off until fish surface around them. 

False albacore sometimes come within casting distance of ocean and bay beaches too. The jetties at Montauk Harbor and the Shinnecock Canal are prime spots for shore anglers.

Albies eat on the run. They can strike a lure or fly with incredible force. A loosely gripped rod can be ripped from the hand of an unwary angler. Once hooked, the football-shaped wad of muscle will flee at up to 40 miles per hour, removing line from a reel at an astonishing rate. 

Albies are relentless fighters. Their initial long run of 100 yards won’t be their last. They will run a fisherman around the boat from bow to stern and back, bending a rod within an inch of its lifetime warranty. Once close to the boat, they inexplicably swim in a figure-eight pattern, which perhaps is designed to hypnotize a fatigued angler into submission. Even when boated, a falsie continues to rapidly shake its tail as if trying to swim in air. It never accepts defeat.

The tools for catching false albacore must be up to the challenging task. A seven-foot medium or medium/heavy spinning rod or an 8-to-10-weight fly rod work nicely. A reel with a strong and smooth drag is mandatory. Line, mono, braid, or fly line, must be free of nicks or other defects or expect to hear that disappointing pop shortly after hook-up. Albies have excellent vision so a two-to-three-foot fluorocarbon leader of at most 20 pounds is recommended. The go-to lures for false albacore are the silver Deadly Dick tin and white four-inch soft-plastics such as Slug-Go and Zoom Fluke on a small jig head. Local tackle shops can advise on which lures and colors are working best at the time.

There is a myth that lures and flies must be retrieved at breakneck speed to attract a strike from a false albacore. A medium-speed retrieve with a regular twitch is much more effective, particularly when the albies are steadily feeding on a ball of bait. Sometimes just letting a cast soft-plastic or fly slowly flutter to the bottom will result in a vicious hit. 

The false albacore bite can turn on and off quickly, influenced by a variety of factors. The albie on the line might be the last one an angler catches that day or that season. One can never assume there will be a next one.

Bruce Stevens and I were fishing on my boat many years ago enjoying epic albie action. After reeling in yet another fish after a long battle, Bruce goaded the fish gods by requesting “just one more” before we motored home from north of Gardiner’s Island. I continued to catch fish after fish while his lure suddenly failed to attract even a glance, like a Honda at a Hamptons gala. I offer this simply as a cautionary tale for those eagerly awaiting the arrival of a favorite adversary.

The Montauk Surfmasters Fall Classic fishing tournament starts Friday, Sept. 9, at 12:01 a.m. and ends Saturday, Nov. 26, at 10 a.m. More details at montauksurfmaster.com or at Paulie’s Tackle in Montauk.

In other big fish news, the ocean research organization Ocearch has discovered what it believes to be a great white shark nursery a few miles south of Montauk. The group caught and tagged several juvenile great white sharks over the last two weeks that can be tracked on its website, ocearch.org. 

Bait is the word in local waters. An abundance of small bait in the bay has attracted snappers to monster bluefish from Three Mile Harbor to Montauk. Huge choppers were reported in Plum Gut, the Race, and around the Ruins. An acre of small blues has been roaming north of Gardiner’s Island, gorging themselves on small silversides. Pods of bunker have also been spotted between Three Mile Harbor and Napeague. Sooner or later, they will be victimized by large predators.

Ocean beaches are getting more active, with surfcasters hooking blues, stripers, and fluke, according to multiple tackle shop reports. 

Sebastian Gorgone at Mrs. Sam’s Bait and Tackle in East Hampton reported that fluke have been taken from the beach on bucktails rigged with Gulp-baited stinger hooks. Harvey Bennett at the Tackle Shop in Amagansett said that there are striped bass at Ditch Plain and at Main Beach in East Hampton at night. Paulie’s Tackle reported that big blues and an occasional striper are tearing up bunker schools that have moved close to ocean beaches. 

Ken Morse at Tight Lines Tackle in Sag Harbor said there’s a nice fluke bite around Shinnecock on Peruvian spearing and Gulp products and weakfish are holding around Buoy 16 in Peconic Bay.

Follow The Star’s fishing columnist on Twitter, @ehstarfishing. Photos of prize catches can be emailed to David Kuperschmid at [email protected].