My good friend Jared Tausig off Watch Hill Rhode Island with a nice false albacore.

As I wrote recently, the fall run of false albacore is in — and in big numbers.

A friend of mine had a 20+ albie day last week off Cape Cod. I repeat: a day of more than 20 albies caught, personally. That’s cause for fishing retirement, if I’ve ever heard it; you’ll never have such a good day again.

And so it was great excitement that I went fishing with my good friend and fellow Boston Fly Casters member Jared recently for albies. Our destination: the Watch Hill area of Rhode Island.

We arrived at the parking lot just shy of 6am, and found it packed: we weren’t the only ones with albie fever, it seemed. This was confirmed out on the water: there so many boats, as well as kayakers and divers, that it often felt less like a congo line than like a busy intersection with no lights and few laws. For the most part, people were behaved. For the most part.

The albies, on the other hand, exhibited both model and disappointing behavior. They were everywhere, busting the surface in pursuit of bay anchovies. We followed them closely and got a number of good shots on thick pods of fish. My friend Jared was successful in landing one (see below) and coming tight to another. Me? All I got was one nibble.

Was it frustrating? A bit. But there is nothing — nothing — like chasing around schools of albies. The speed, the adrenaline, the beauty of the fish. I’ve written before about my fondness for them (here and here) and this day was no different. We put in 10 hours on the water, and 4+ hours of driving, and had a blast.

While out there, we motored past Joe Gugino of Why Knot Fishing in a kayak. He got into some tunnies that day as well. Check out his photo:

I hope my skunk won’t last long: I’m heading out with the talented Tom Rapone, a guide off of Martha’s Vineyard who works with The Compleat Angler, in a little more than a week. We had great luck with Tom last summer, and hope to have the same luck this year.

I also took a bunch of video that I hope to share soon. Stay tuned. Or, better yet, get out fishing!