Yep, the albie bite has been the best I’ve seen in a long time. Consistent action over a large area, we’ve had a couple of days with over 40 fish. Today was special though. It seems as though the forecast scared a lot of people off the water because there were hardly any boats in even the most popular spots. Austin and I started at the usual places. At first, there wasn’t much activity but once the sun got up a bit, the bite turned on. Austin broke his albie cherry pretty quick by putting the first one of the day in the boat…

That spot produced 6 more fish over the next hour but it quieted down quickly. The few boats that were there were all suddenly competing for the same fish that were popping up here and there… Time to leave. We headed back west along the various rips and rock piles. As we passed over a spot that has always done well for me before, we tossed out the lures and trolled to see if anyone was home. It took less than a minute to hook up. We never left that spot for the rest of the morning. There were no birds, no fish blowing up and best of all… No other boats. We spent the rest of the morning drifting over about a 1/2 mile lane just blind casting. They hit everything we threw. Boats would drive by, see us doubled up but with no birds diving, every one of them kept moving. After probably the 20th fish, I decided to play a little bit. I rummaged through the tackle box and pulled out a few topwater lures I had been meaning to try… First up was a Rebel Jumpin’ Minnow in Bone color. Well, that didn’t take long… After a few fish, I had one cut me off on the prop while I was screwing around with the video camera. Multi-tasking and albies don’t mix. Next I tied on a Badonk-A-Donk. These are pretty big lures. Most guys look at them and think there is no way an albie would grab it. WRONG!   The albies were all over it. Cast after blind cast, they were blowing right out of the water with it. The lure casts a mile and the rattles made it very easy for them to locate the lure in the chop of the rips… I managed to get quite a bit of the action on video. Hopefully I will have some time in the next day or so to edit it down and get up here on the site.
The whole time I was playing with topwaters, Austin was hooking up left and right with the trusty Sebile Magic Swimmer. We eventually lost my last white one and switched to Sea Chrome color… No matter… Fish after fish came to the boat. We eventually had to leave them biting. Austin put the last one on the boat and we scooted back to Niantic so that I could get to work on time. Truly an amazing day on the water.

 Here is a video and some pics of the days fun:

In case you haven’t heard, the albies are here…. And boy are they thick!

Michael, Jay and I met up for another day of albies. We hung out at Bartlett’s for a while waiting for it to get light out and maybe see some activity. I was pumped for another killer day and I knew there was a pile of albies to the east so we decided to motor up and head to the promised land. We got there just after sunrise and joined a small group of boats already fishing.

  The action was slow at first, small pods appearing only for a few seconds. But as the sun got higher and the tide stronger, the action heated up. I can’t remember who hooked up first but we had 2 fish in the boat pretty quick and it just kept going from there…

As we fought one of our fish, we drifted close to another guy that was fishing solo. He too was hooked up and laughing like crazy at the runs his fish was making. We talked back and forth a bit and he commented that this was his very first albie. It was pretty cool to see him out there on his own and figuring things out. We saw him hooked up several more times throughout the morning…

 It started getting crowded and we moved off the main pile of fish and found our own away from most of the other boats. The action continued with busting fish popping up all arounds us. They were never up for long so instead of giving chase we waited till they surfaced within range. We also managed many fish just blind casting. Constant action was the norm, we had several doubles. Most fish came on Deadly Dicks but when the fish were close enough, we threw unweighted 5″ Houdini Shad in Camo Pearl color. I wish every day was this easy!

Better late then never I guess… Things were shaping up nicely in late August. That all changed with tropical storm Irene, we’ve had dirty water ever since. Today Andrew, Al and I launched in Niantic at 5:30 and headed straight to Montauk. It was an easy ride with flat water and very little fog.

There wasn’t much life there, a few birds and the occassional bait skipping out of the water but not the usual all out blitzes we have come to expect from Montauk in September. We went around the corner and headed down the south shore to a rip that we had done well on before. Sure enough, there were albies there. I eased the boat up on the blitz and killed the motor. Andrew made the first cast and hooked up instantly.

We hung out till 7:30 in hopes of finding more action… That was it for Montauk. We saw a few more minor blitzes but they never stayed up long enough to manuever the boat and get a cast off. We headed to Block Island from there. The fog got thicker as we got closer to the island, the last few miles took forever. Since we couldn’t see anything, we stopped and shut the boat down every half mile or so to listen for birds or breaking fish… We heard neither. We kept moving all the way from the southwest corner to the north rip. The fog finally cleared at the north rip and we spotted a group of birds working on the far end. It looked like there were a few albies there but all we could catch were bluefish. They were gorging on 4-5″ squid. Albies were the objective today so we kept on moving.

From there, we made our way to the west wall of Point Judith. There were already a few boats there in a relatively small area, always a good sign… We shut down and sat back to watch for a bit. A few minutes later the gus spotted a solitary bird about a half mile away that was feeding. Sure enough, by the time I got the boat moving in that direction, there were fish breaking on  the same bait. I hooked up on a Magic Swimmer after a few casts. It sure felt great to hear the drag scream for 20 seconds at a clip again! The fish were absolutely gorgeous in the erly morning sun.

Al hooked up not much later. The fish were throwing up large silversides, almost a perfect match for the Deadly Dicks…

There were a few small blitzes spread out over a large area and a handful of boats that would race each other every time the fish popped up. We decided to move on in hopes of finding our own fish. Charlestown Breachways had lots of life. There were pods of albies in tight and out quite a ways off the beach. We all managed to boat another fish each before things quieted down again…

From there, we kept heading west. We found a few pods of albies along the way but they were never up for long and they were picky. As we neared Watch Hill, we spotted a small group of boats in a particular part of the rip. As we got closer, the birds appeared just off the water. Closer still and we could see albies and LOTS of them. We went way wide of the action and set up up=tide of the fish. Once we drifted into the rip, it didnt take long to hook up. It was fast and furious action for the rest of the afternoon. The majority of the fish came right in the rip but we also boated a few well away from the group of boats.

We ended the day with 30 fish in the boat, nearly 11 hours and 126 miles on the GPS. Tired, sore and wind burned but it was worth every minute!