Chasing albies still fun

SHACKLEFORD BANKS -- A couple of hundred yards away, the seagulls were diving and grabbing at the water.

Beaufort's Marty Moore fired up his outboard and sped off after the commotion.

Little tunny -- mostly referred to as albacore, false albacore or albies -- in the 10-pound range were relentlessly swimming, mouths open, after Atlantic menhaden, and sometimes that chase broke the surface. Schools of the fish porpoised the way dolphin tend to roll.

The gulls weren't after the albacore. They would have a heck of a time if they were.

They grasped at the menhaden, which tried to elude the air-sea double-whammy.

"You got to try to get there as quick as possible," said Moore, a fishing guide who grew up in Garner.

While the albies didn't have to worry about the birds, they did have fishermen to contend with, even if most of these fish are released. Fair or not, the fish have a bad reputation when it comes to table value.

Moore had run his outboard at high speed and then killed the engine as he pulled up on a school of surface-busting fish. He fired off a cast and furiously reeled a lure through the fast-moving school. A moment later, he was hooked into a fish, which fought for minutes.

In the 1990s, fly fishermen became interested in false albacore, which move north along the coast in the spring and back south in the fall and winter. They'll be around in North Carolina waters through the winter, even if few anglers target them then.

In 1997, former President George H.W. Bush fly-fished for albacore in this same spot, with a throng of Secret Service agents in tow.

Interest in albacore fishing has waned since, even among fly fishermen, who probably still make up the majority of albie enthusiasts.

On this day, one man fishing solo and anchored, worked a fly with precision whenever a school surfaced.

Spinning tackle also can be an effective method for catching albacore, and that is Moore's preferred means of hooking up. Metal lures such as the Hopkin's or Strikesilver can be cast over schools of fish and then reeled in quickly through the school.

"You want to rip that as fast as you can," Moore said.

Getting a good cast can be difficult, especially in front of the banks, where aside from wind grabbing baits and taking them unintended places, wave action also can affect accuracy.

Little tunny are in the family of fish that includes mackerel and tuna. They fight hard, which is why they became so popular with fly anglers.

What makes them good fighters also can make them hard to track down. Many fly anglers stake out a spot where the fish seem to keep cycling back to. Moore preferred to chase them down, even though by the time he arrived, they often seemingly dispersed. But even when gulls saw no opportunity for a free meal, albacore were near.

"Oh, there they go," Moore said after one chance that at first seemed to have dematerialized. But more albies broke the surface on the other side of the boat.

"They can be the most frustrating thing," Moore said.

He cast over the fish, and felt a tug.

About five minutes later, Moore landed the fish, one of six boated on a day he also targeted red drum, gray trout and thick schools of bluefish in nearby Back Sound.

"They're not always that hard to catch," Moore said, "and sometimes they're harder."

Latest Comment View all comments