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sefly.com
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Cape Lookout False Albacore |
False Albacore Fly Fishing
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| Run and Gun, motoring about Cape Lookout Bight searching the horizon for flocks of diving turns feasting on minnows forced to the surface by voracious False Albacore; and then running full bore, hoping to get to the action before the action subsides; is a proven technique for fly anglers. The problem comes when over eager anglers want to run full speed right upon top of the breaking fish. Do your self a favor, and gain the respect of the anglers around you; Do Not run right up on top of the fish! Slow down, judge the speed and direction of the Albacore school, check the wind; and then ease your boat into a position where the Albacore can intercept your drift. If you case False Albacore in this manner, they will be more likely to remain in the same general area, and to stay up on top for longer periods of time. If you beat down every school of Albacore you come across, you'll spend more time running here and there, rather than pulling on fish. If you approach the school slowly, let the wind push you into the fish, swing wide if you need to catch up with a school to get into position for another interception; do this, and you have a good chance of pulling several fish from each school you find. | ||||
| Chumming,
most of the tackle shops in area have frozen block of bay anchovies.
Investing in two or three blocks of frozen frozen bay anchovies.
When you cannot find Albert busting bait on top, the option to chum them
up to your boat can certainly save the day. Cape Lookout Bight is a big place, just randomly stopping the boat and deploying some chum may or may not produce the results you want. You can increase your likelihood of successfully chumming up some False Albacore if are more selective in choosing where you choose to chum. Chumming generally works best in deeper water, at least a couple of miles off the beach. Success can be had by chumming in areas where you see scattered Albacore that do not stay up long enough to get a shot at them. You can also do well by chumming in areas where you get "good marks" on your fish finder. I also would not hesitate to stop and chum an area where others a chumming. Less is more when chumming False Albacore. The frozen minnows are generally rather small, averaging less than a inch long. You'll need to thaw them out in a bucket of seawater. Disperse the chum very sparingly, only five or ten minnows at a time. Drop the minnows minnows and watch them sink away; when you can no longer see the first few you dropped, its time to drop a few more. Keep up this cadence until you see Alberts flashing in the chum. Keep a line in the water, a small Clouser fly that matches the size and color of the chum minnows fished almost at dead drift on an intermediate line may produce strikes from fish that are fifty or sixty beyond where you can see. When you get hooked up, don't forget to keep up the chum cadence. Once you get fish around your boat you will want to keep them with you. When you land these chummed fish, they will often regurgitate your chum minnows.
Other chum options, it is possible to chum False Albacore with things other than frozen bay anchoviess. Following a brisk cold-front I have found anchovies pack so tight against the beach at Shackleford Banks that a single throw of a small mesh cast net produced over sixty pounds of minnows. I have also very successfully chummed False Albacore with fresh shrimp head that I was give free at a local commercial quay. When the Morehead City shrimp boats are making day trips, you can often ask them to save you a basket or two of trawl cull for a minimal charge. Just be careful about being caught with undersize fish on your boat. With this larger trawl boat cull for bait, it's a better technique to cut the fish into smaller pieces (chunking) rather than pitching over whole fish. A ten pound Albert can only eat so many larger fish before he has a belly full. When chunking, or using shrimp head, just like with the glass minnows, a slow steady cadence works best. Let one or two pieces sink out of sight before dropping more pieces in.
Ebb tide option; the ebb tide at both Beauford Inlet and Barden Inlet was out a substantial amount of baitfish with each tide. I can't guarantee hot and heavy action around the inlets on a daily basis; but it is one more option, especially worth exploring if little is happening elsewhere. When it does get hot, the bite in the inlets can be really hot; and if you can, cut the shorebound fly anglers some slack if you can. Those guys work really hard to get just a few good shots at fish per day, just don't have the mobility that the boat angler has, if you can try not to cut them off from getting a shot at approaching fish.
Harry Hall sefly
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