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 Albies On The Fly: Into The Backing In Seconds!
Posted by dan-l on September 29, 2004
(2727 reads)
My best friend Marc who fishes 160+ days a year went on vacation to Southern
RI for a fishing extravaganza this past Saturday. So I decided to take a ride
down and fish with him Sunday to pull an all nighter for stripers and Monday
morning first light for the bonito and albacore with the fly rod. When we
fish together we fish hard, moving from one spot to the next until we find
the fish and are hooking up consistently.
This time of the year it can be hit or miss from one location to another,
but once you find the fish and what they are hitting you better have your
game face on, because you may catch a schoolie striper one cast then a 40+
pounder on the next. This past Sunday night was no exception!!!
We started fishing Narragansett at 8:30pm. The tide was just starting to go
out, there was bait everywhere, and Marc caught a 20lbs striper on the first
cast. It didn't
take long for me to hook up but I only got into a 25 inch
fish. After fishing 45 or so minutes I finally land a striper we are
guessing to be 30+ lbs, it was BIG. Well after one more cast I reel in, only
to reel in too far and too fast and catch the swivel in the top guide of my
rod, breaking the guide. (Anyone who has fished with me knows I always take
top guides as well as an extra rod everywhere I go.) But do you think I take
one this night... NO....NO extra rod, NO extra guides. GREAT!! Now I am
sitting on the beach with a broken rod, the tide is perfect, there is a ton
of bait and BIG stripers are everywhere. Marc had to hold back from laughing
out loud a few times as he heard me cursing to the fish gods on the beach.
(I can laugh about it now, but it was not funny then).
I told Marc I would hang around on the beach until he was ready to head out,
but he insisted we go back and grab extra rods for the evening was still
young. We stopped and picked up 6 extra rods, we were not going to be held
up from fishing for the rest of the night, no matter what happens.
40 minutes later we are scavenging the beaches looking for more stripers but
seemed all we could find were bluefish that liked to eat $20 Habs needlefish
for dinner. Once we each lost one to the blues we went spot to spot never to
get into the stripers again. I believe we cursed ourselves when we left the
big stripers to get more rods, and made the mistake not to go back for them,
but who knew.
First light came and it was off to try for the bonito and 'albies' off the
rock jetties. We got there a little late due to the line at Duncan Donuts,
as we are walking out it is so foggy you can hardly see 100 feet in front of
you, but we make it to the first bend and there is a guy fighting an 'albie'
with his fly rod, walk to the second guy and he is on too. We find our rocks
and start fishing, within 10 minutes Marc is on, the guy to my right and
left are on and I can not cast due to flylines being every which way in
front of me. So I take a seat and watch the fun, and it is fun watching
these guys. They are all hooting and hollering like they just won a million
dollars. The lines clear and I finally get to fish, only problem is there
are no fish around now. We fished another hour and none of the 20+ fly
fisherman are hooking up.
I make one call to my friend who owns a tackle shop in the area, and ask if
the fish have been in 'Quanny' Breachway. He states the fish have been there
every day, on every tide, so off we went again to another spot in search of
the fast and elusive 'Albie'. We get to the breachway and it is FULL of
mullet, I grab my rod take 2 casts and see a school of 'albies' running
right to me. I make a horrible 20 foot cast but far enough ahead of them not
to screw it up and 'BANG' fish on. I set the hook and this fish ripped off
all my fly line and right into the backing before I could tell Marc I was
hooked up. I finally landed the fish with some help, snapped a picture and
released the fish. Marc was going back to where he left his rod, but before
he got there I was yelling to him I had another one on and to come give me a
hand. At this point I realized I had a crowd of 9 fisherman that were
fishing the breachway behind me trying to figure out what I was using for
bait and what I had on. Ten minutes later and smiling ear to ear I landed
the 'albie' snapped another picture, and back in the water it went. I was so
tired from being up all night I sat on the rocks and talked with some of the
local fisherman I have met through out the years fishing the area not even
thinking of putting my line back in the water. Marc took a few more casts
and we called it a morning.... Back to take a nap and drive home to cook
dinner for the wife.......
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Great Article - see ya next weekend
by jeremy on September 29, 2004 http://www.fliesandfins.com | | I am coming down to Rhode Island next weekend. This weekend we are going to Salmon River. See you then - I will call you tomorrow. I hope there is still one more Albie left in Rhode Isand for me:) - I wanna be one of those guys "hooting and hollering" on the west wall. |
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