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!

 

I had back to back trips again today. First up was Bob R again, this time he had Rich with him. Out in the bay, we were greeted by huge waves on the rips. The wind was howling against a cranking tide and we had some easy 6 footers right where we needed to be. It made for some uncomfortable fishing but some spectacular video…. (I’ll get to posting that over the weekend) Eventually the wind calmed and so did the tide and by 7:30, you never would have guessed it had been blowing at all. The bluefish were thicker than ever this morning. I know it happens every year, and I should get used to it but I really hate those yellow eyed bastards! We went through a ton of hooks and seemed to spend just as much time catching bait as we did stalking the bass. We only boated a few bass, I think only one was close to 40″. The rest of the day was spent tossing bait into the wood chipper. Bob likes to chase the bitzes on top, so we finally threw in the towel and broke out the spinning gear. There are a few bass mixed in with the blues on top and we had fun with them for a while. It wasn’t what I had hoped for but it was (marginally) better than a skunk…

Round two went much better. I had youngsters Adam and his buddy Harrison on board. They were dropped off at the ramp right at 11 and we headed straight out. We had the last of the ebb for catching our scup. We hit a few spots and finally found them in about 30 feet of water. The 2 boys were excellent and we had what we needed in no time flat. With the blues we had found in the morning, I decided to head in the other direction in hopes of eluding them for the afternoon. We pulled up in the first spot and dropped the baits down. Harrison hooked up first, not a big fish but the skunk was out of the boat early… We motored back up tide and repeated the same drift. In just about the same exact area, Adam got smacked. This one was a much better fish. I’ve never had someone that young be able to fight a fish so well. I wish some of my older clients did as well as he did…

The tide was slowing and that spot dried up shortly after that. We moved around trying deep and shallow in hopes of finding more fish but after an hour with no more fish I decided to head back to the scene of the crime from the morning trip. I figured that a shredded bait was better than nothing. By the time we go there, the tide had turned again. The birds, bait and blues were nowhere to be found. We were the only boat there… Perfect…

The boys put a whuppin’ on some real nice bass for the rest of the trip. Here are the pics from the rest of the trip:

Stroby was back again this morning… It’s not often we have a poor trip when he’s on board so I had high hopes for the morning. He didn’t disappoint.

We bumbled around a bit trying to find bait. It was slow going. We tried a completely new spot that was only 14 feet and found a bunch. It was getting pretty bright out and I really wanted to get out on the piles to take advantage of the low light. In the first 3 drifts, we had 4 fish on. We boated 2 of them. Here is my first fish of the morning.

I was trying a different rig this morning. The water has been very clear and the fish seem to be line shy at times. My 3-way rig had a much longer leader than usual and was only 20lb fluoro. I think it definitely helped get more bites but it also cost me the biggest fish of the day. I had a bass take 85 yards of line on the first run, we were even chasing it down… It pulled a lot harder and longer than any we landed today. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t… We put a few in the boat and ended up running out of bait. We were also losing the tide so we made the call to reload on porgy. None of the earlier spots were working. We moved around quite a bit and ended up fishing in 30 feet of water. The tide had turned and that was all it took for them to start feeding again.

The bass were right where we left them. We put a few more in the boat before we ran out of time. All in all, it was a good day. The fish were all good sized bass. Hopefully they stick around a bit longer!

 

 

This morning was day two with Bob R, this time he had his buddy Dave with him. It was overcast with thick fog and few rain drops when we pulled away from the dock.  Aside from slow going, I love fishing on days like these. Dave was commenting on the conditions as we headed out under the bridge, the day was designated Big Fish Friday. We would see… Porgy weren’t too bad this morning, we put a quick dozen in the live wells and headed out while it was still fairly dark out. I think we had 3 fish in the first 5 drifts. Nothing huge, but it sure is nice to unload the skunk early in the trip…

After all the surface activity yesterday, Bob brought a couple of spinning rods and was rigged in case we found them again. Sure enough, we could hear them slapping and slurping about 200 yeards away in the fog. We made our way over and began casting. It was an even mix of bass and blues. The blues were 10 – 12 pounds and there were bass up to 40″ on top. They were gorging on butterfish all around us. When a hooked fish would throw up next to the boat, there would be dozens of 3″ butters floating. Within seconds,  fish would be tearing through the cloud. It was pretty cool to see… After a while, the guys had their fill and we moved on in search of bigger fish. 

We moved north into shallow water away from the melee looking for solitary fish. I remember looking at the GPS at 7:39 and as I looked back up, Bob’s rod was doubled over and I could hear the line hissing off the reel. Bob was having a hard time stopping this bass. I had Dave reel up and we fired up the big motor to chase the fish down. Bob kept the pressure on and we had her to the boat in less than 5 minutes. WOW, this fish was massive. It wasn’t incredibly fat, but the shoulders were huge. This fish has the potential to be in the mid 60 pound range with the right forage around. Take a look at how far across the head on this fish was!

 

We kept her tethered on the Boga Grip and in the water while we cleared the deck and got the camera out. Once we were all set, Bob got her up and we snapped a few pics…

Things settled down after that… We had a few more fish between 40 and 42″ and lots more surface action but no more real excitement. Kind of tough to beat that fish anyway. Everyone felt satisfied and we headed in 1/2 hour early…

Bob R is back again for the next couple of days.  Today he had Joe with him. Both guys have fished with me before so we had no problem getting our bait and right in to fish.  The day started off a little foggy, but wasn’t too bad at all.  We started on a little hump in 20 feet of water that has been holding some decent fish lately…  I think it was on our third drift of the morning when Joe got smashed and smashed HARD.  The porgy never saw it coming. Joe put the boots to the fish and had it to the boat fairly quick. We were in a hurry to get the fish back in the water, so the pics didn’t come out as well as I had hoped.  The fish was a little over 47″ but was a lot fatter than the pic shows…

The blues had shown up in force overnight and were ripping our baits to shreds. Fish were busting all around us. Many were coming completely out the water while chasing bait. We ran in for a few more and when we came back out, we moved a bit deeper in hopes of finding quality bass instead of bluefish. We picked away for the next couple of hours and did OK. We still had a few blues, but did manage to find a few good bass too. Here are a few pics of the rest of the action…

I had John and his buddy Brian today. We had a tough time at first finding bait of any size, but eventually got enough to get us out on the rock piles. The tide was ripping at close to 3MPH over 25 feet of water at the first spot. 15 minutes into drifting, John hooked up first with a nice fish. It had taken a lot of line in the first run, so I fired up the motor to chase it down to try to keep it out of the rocks. As I motored up tide, I watched John’s rod tip. Somthing just didn’t look right… Once we gained some line back, I took the rod for a second just to see what we were dealing with. Sure enough, there was a decent fish on it, but it was wrapped around a lobster pot. With the tide running as strong as it was, the buoy was under the surface and we never saw it. The fish had wrapped around the line on the pot. We backed off on the drag a bit and I took a guess which side to to go around the pot. If we got it wrong, the fish would be gone… I guessed right and the fish was free again. A couple of minutes later and she was in the boat…

 

We spent a while longer at that spot with no other fish. By this time, the fog rolled in pretty thick.  We slowly moved around a bit and tried some different spots. We fished as deep as 60 and as shallow as 15. The tide was slowing to a trickle and the action was dead everywhere… I had a feeling that if we stuck around long enough for the tide chage, we’d find more fish. We used the down time to grab a few more porgies and by the time we got back to the reef, the tide had turned. I asked the guys if they had anywhere they needed to be today and explained that the conditions were rapidly improving and if we stuck it out a little longer we’d boat a couple more. They were up for the extra time on the reef… That’s all it took. In the next few drifts we found what we were looking for. The guys put a few more fish in the boat. That’s been the pattern for me lately. The fish are there but nothing has been easy. We are working for every fish we get. Here are a few more pictures from the morning: