Intro | Fat Alberts | Tackle | Albaclousers | Presenting the Fly | Releasing Albacore

About Fat Alberts

It wasn't until the early 1980s when Pete Allred, a friend from Morehead City, North Carolina, told me he was having a great time catching albacore on spinning tackle using slender silver jigging lures called "Stingsilvers." The lures proved to be an excellent imitation of the two- to three-inch silversides, or glass minnows, that false albacore key on. Using #2 and #4 long-shank hooks, silver mylar piping, and sparse bucktail for the wing, I tied some decent slender minnow imitations. They were really variations of the familiar Black-nosed Dace streamer used by many trout fishermen.

Using bonefish-weight tackle and my new flies one beautiful October afternoon, I was astounded to learn that false albacore love flies. Almost every time I got my streamer into or in front of a breaking school, I got a hookup. By the end of the day, however, I had taken a terrible beating: The score was 14 to 2 in favor of the albacore. Even with lots of Keys flats fish under my belt, I was simply not prepared for the speed and strength of 10- to 20-pound albacore. That first afternoon I had hooks straightened and loops lodged in my fly rod's guides. Even more humbling, I had to break off several fish when they took me almost to the end of my 175 yards of backing.

Atlantic bonito are easily distinguished from false albacore in three ways. First, bonito are usually half to two-thirds the size of their larger cousins; second, they have straight horizontal markings on their sides as opposed to the dark jagged markings found on false albacore; and finally, bonito are absolutely delicious. They are so good that, even though I am a staunch practitioner of catch-and-release, I often release the first couple of bonito into my ice chest. Both are great fly-rod fish, but along the Outer Banks, false albacore are much more common.

Over the past four or five years, fly rodders have discovered the extraordinary false albacore fishery from the Virginia Capes to the North Carolina Outer Banks. The best fishing occurs in October and November, with the peak usually occurring about the first week of November. Although all inlets along the Outer Banks have good false albacore populations, none is better than Bardens Inlet near Cape Lookout.

At Bardens, Ocracoke, Hatteras, and Oregon inlets and along adjoining beaches, false albacore arrive when water temperatures begin to drop into the high 60s. Optimum feeding and concentrations of fish occur when the water is between 58 and 64 degrees. Good fishing can continue until the water drops into the low 50s and baitfish begin to disappear, often well into December. The inlets concentrate baitfish coming out of North Carolina's sounds--Pamlico, Albemarle, and Core--much like funnels. It is at these points of concentration where the albacore and other predators gorge on silversides and finger mullet. On a good day a competent fly rodder can get 20 or more hookups.

Tom Earnhardt lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is the author of Fly Fishing the Tidewaters and Boats for Fishermen.

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