Albies In The Surf To The Table

My favorite fish to catch from land are albies, falsies, or false albacore and they are in thick right now.  Now I just have to blow off this demolition job and get out there.  The weather today is no good for this fishing so we will wait for tomorrow.  The other day and for the last few days Gage Tayler and Tyler Graden have been hammering albies in the surf, on all of the beaches.  Yesterday was no exception for action. ” We got em yesterday morning, Tyler’s hit a white two ounce cripple shad and mine hit a one ounce metal jig with a mullet design. Tyler’s was about twenty-eight inches, and  mine was twenty-three inches.  They are in thick. We got a great pattern on them so far. We’ve been logging every group we encounter. Crazy how things can be the same everyday.”  The albies are in thick on small bait, so you definitely need small lures to match the bait.  Throwing a huge metal like a four-ounce hopkins will just scare them off.  That was the case a few days ago for some anglers offshore.  “The albies would only hit the small lures they were not feeding on the bunker or mullet, there were on the anchovies.  There were forty boats chasing them and no one was hooking up but us, we were using one ounce spoons.”  You need something small with good strong hooks, I am fixing up my small metals right now with better, stronger hooks.  I have a bunch that match silversides, anchovies, and mullet patterns. Tomorrow is going to be a day of hunting for albies.  I think pink will be one of the colors of choice too.

Knowing Gage and his affinity for eating fish I had to ask, did you eat one?  Yes they did and apparently it was delicious, now I really need to get out there.

Gage … “We ate one. It’s actually pretty damn good. I enjoyed it and it was better than bluefish.  I skinned some filets and left the skin on some. Cooked the skinless filets in tinfoil with onions and lemon. And the skin on filets I put on the grill. Cooked both the whole way through, it’s a grey flaky meet. Takes on the flavor of what you season it with tastewise. Not as oily as bluefish and is the same way raw. Little wasabi and soy sauce was good with some of the trimmed meat that was a bit cleaner.  We soaked the filets in saltwater first, that is really important.” 

Me … How did they taste?

Gage … “They are a lot better than I expected.  I plan on making sushi with the next one. I also made albie salad today (like tuna salad) and that was spot on too!”

Me … “Nice work!  Love the  pictures and I will see you Wednesday.  By the way,  If you want to throw off people on where you caught these then use the bridge for a background.  Spot on!”  Wednesday will be a fun afternoon of hunting albies.  The gear will be ready, the truck is gassed, and we are ready to roam the beaches looking for boiling, angry water. 

Fish On!

Rich King