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Best Albie Fishing Ever: Mon-Tues Report w/Pics



 
 
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Old November 20th, 2003, 04:51 AM
TidalFish.com
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Default Best Albie Fishing Ever: Mon-Tues Report w/Pics

More reports available at Tidal Fish
http://www.TidalFish.com

Brandon writes:
I posted the report below on the flyboard since these Albies are
mainly chased by the long rodders, but Dave catches a lot on light
tackle with his friends and clients and seeing we have a lot of light
tackle guys here thought you would enjoy, I added a few light tackle
pics, we also caught a few puppy drum on light tackle, pcis
below...you can catch the albies casting, jigging, and/or trolling, be
careful if you do it though, these fish are highly addictive

My good friend Tom M. and I were looking forward to heading down to
Beaufort, NC for our annual pilgrimage in search of Albies that we
look forward to each year, but with the poor reports and tough weather
we were not sure if we were going to make it down. I gave a good
fishing friend Capt. Dave Dietzer a call and asked what he thought
about us coming down and getting together to try for some Albies. Dave
and I have known each other for about five years and have been meaning
to get together and do some fishing, but between him always being busy
with charters thought out all the times we have been down for the
Albies and Bluefin season we never hooked up. Dave said for us to get
our butts down there and we will give them a try. So last week Tom and
I took a look at the long range forecast and eyed Mon and Tues as
looking like good days. We looked again on Saturday and decided to
give it a go. I arranged the fishing and place to stay and Tom got us
a plane and at 4:dark-thirty am Monday Tom and I got up and headed to
Dulles Airport. By 6:dark-thirty am we had wheels up and were on our
way south to the Albie promised land. Arrived in Beaufort at about
7:40am, grabbed a cab, dropped our stuff off at the hotel and Dave was
waiting for us out front and off we went. Made our way through the no
wake zones and asked Dave how the fishing had been the last two day,
Dave said, "Slow at best, but I might just know a few places to look."
Well by 8:30am we were on busting, frothing, revenging Alblies in calm
seas. I figured these fish would be like the ones we caught over the
last three years and be in the 6-9lb class so I threw out by Blanco
Albi fly on an 8wt and it was not long before the reel was singing,
Tom put on a Dirty Dave Clean fly and he was hooked up in seconds as
well. Then Dave threw some light tackle and BOOM he was hooked up as
well. First mistake I made was using the 8wt, these fishing are not
the normal, they are 15lbs+ fish and crazy strong. Took me one fish
before the 8wt was put away and the 10wt brought out. And after the
first day that was put away and the 12wt weapon brought out.

This basically lasted most of the day for at least 41/2 hours with it
tapering off into the 5th, simply unreal fishing. Even more unreal is
that we were the ONLY boat on these fish all day, not another boat
even in site. We were in Dave's skiff, no radio, not noise other then
fishing talk, high fives, "yahoo's", "wows" and the sounds of ravaging
Albies…it does not get much better then that!

Today (Tues) was about the same, as many fish as we wanted and not
another Albie fishing boat around all day. We did have to go deep for
them today , or least about a foot or so down. Had this type of
fishing more then yesterday as they were not on the surface as much,
although we did have a few great blitzes, but even having a strike
subsurface with a 15lb+ Albie gets your adrenalin pumping pretty quick
The rain did come and after we had landed a ton we decided to head in
and search for some puppy drum/reds that we have "heard" about, but
never seen in the many years we have been down there.

A few things we learned from Dave, I think fishing with a
guy/guide/captain who has local knowledge from fishing year round down
there is invaluable: 1) The myth that these fish will not hit big
flies is just that a myth! Tom fished a 5/0 fly that Dave ties and
they hit that as much as mine. In fact having a bigger hook was better
because these fish were so big I was losing fish on #2's and #1's
because they were straightening them, in fact they were even bending
the 5/0 a bit at times and these were decent hooks, Mustad 34007's. 2)
These fish are eating BIG bait. I took some pics like Capt. Frank
posted, but how about landing an Albie and it spits out a decent size
croaker…I think they will eat big bait and big flies 3) I have fished
down there a bunch of years and have some really good techniques of
fishing for these guys what has worked really well, but even when you
think you know things you sometimes do not. Dave really taught Tom and
I a lot in two days time about the area and how to find these fish
when sometimes others are not. 4) These fish are not real leader shy
one bit, we switched over to 30lb Ande braided line for leaders
because they were so strong and it helped us land them at the boat
quickly.

So after we wore ourselves out on the Albies Dave took us back to some
of his puppy drum spots, we started off fly fishing, but needed to
cover more water quickly because the sun was not up and it was hard to
see them, so we picked up some light tackle and managed to find two
that found Tom and I lures. Dave toped the day off for the grand slam
with a 17-18 inch flounder to cap off a spectacular trip.

Two years ago I had, until the last two days, what I thought was the
best Albie fishing I would ever have on a day Capt. Matt Tawes and I
caught all day long, this trip with Dave and Tom I have to say topped
it simply because of the size of the fish, though the trip Matt and I
had will remain with me forever. The size of the fish I had not even
really seen except for a trip when Tom and I fished with Wild Bill
four years ago when bigger fish were around and we got a few in the
12-14lb range (in fact the pic in my signiture is one of the big ones
from that trip with Bill and it looks on the smaller side of what we
caught the last two days) We honestly caught at least 55 ablies if not
more over the last two days, really a day an a half Ablie fishing. Did
not even count, but it truely was as many as we wanted, sometimes we
would not cast just to take a break. These fish this year are BIG, out
of all the fish we caught I would venture to say only 3-4 were under
11-12lbs, with most in the 14-15lb+ range, 12wt territory for sure!
Capt. Dave said the big fish run in 4-5 year cycles from what he has
seen, which makes sense in my experience with that trip mentioned with
Wild Bill.

Equipment for those interested were mainly 10 and 12wts with large
Tibor reels, sinking lines, and after we learned our lesson 30lb
leaders about 6-8 feet in length. Flies, I used my Blanco Albi fly
that did great in #2, #2, 2/0 and 3/0 and Tom used some Blanco's but
also some Dirty Dave Clean Ablie Specials in 5/0 that really did smoke
them as well. Dave caught a bunch on light tackle on some spoons and
some prototype jigs he tested for us that did great as well.

Tom, thanks for being a great fishing partner, and Dave thanks for
putting Tom and I on fish for a spectacular two days that I will
remember for a long time, my adrenaline is still pumping

PS If I have some typos of grammatical errors please forgive me, my
adrenaline is pumping, but I am about to crash
A few pics, we have at least a hundred, but all I could get done for
now, enjoy:

I think this image of Tom with this Albie sums up the size and girth
on these fish, simply awesome!


More reports available at Tidal Fish
http://www.TidalFish.com
 




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