October 1, 2017 ALBIES and Giant Porgies!
This weekend I made a strong effort to capitalize on the stellar fishing the western sound has to offer this time of year. I started out fishing Friday afternoon after work fishing from 4pm-6:30pm. I focused on an inshore and offshore reef. NO albies showed themselves on the inshore reef, so I chose to run mid-sound to check out another reef where albies were seen earlier that day. They were there, but showed themselves very seldom and for only a few seconds at a time. Needless to say we did not come tight on any that day. Saturday morning the wind was strong out of the east making traveling tough and spotting feeding false albacore even more difficult in the already white capped seas. As soon as 9:30am came the albies got the memo, and began feeding through 11:30am. It was quite difficult to battle the seas, wind, rain, fleet of boats, and pending thunderstorm in the distance to hook and land an albie. We did have one hookup, but for some unknown reason the line broke at the lure, bad knot maybe? That was our only real shot of the day. Our boat did end up landing an XL porgy while killing time waiting for albies to show.
Sunday morning we learned our lesson from the day before, and headed out at (8 instead of 6:30) of the harbor in hopes of connecting with our first October albie. We counted on the fact that the albies were on a tight feeding window of 9:30-11:30 just like the day before, and we expected them to show themselves again at the same time. They sure did, but they were late by 5 minutes haha. We hooked and landed a total of 7 albies. The wind was again strong, but out of the north. It laid down quite nicely come 10am, which allowed all of the fair weather fisherman ample opportunity to invade the local reef in search of the speedsters. There was at least 20 boats around us for most of the morning. We soon realized that the fish were not localized to that one spot, and we ran away from the fleet to find our own fish. The albies readily ate a 7/8 sized Hogy Epoxy Jig in bone, silver, and pink with a quick retrieve on the surface. We had one double. Some of the feeds lasted up to a minute or two at a time, with multiple feeds happening within a 5-10 acre area at one time. My buddy Jon got his first, (second, and third albie) ever. I am hoping and expecting this week for the albies to fill in the inshore areas around the islands and feed in areas as shallow as 3' deep, as in years past.
This weekend I made a strong effort to capitalize on the stellar fishing the western sound has to offer this time of year. I started out fishing Friday afternoon after work fishing from 4pm-6:30pm. I focused on an inshore and offshore reef. NO albies showed themselves on the inshore reef, so I chose to run mid-sound to check out another reef where albies were seen earlier that day. They were there, but showed themselves very seldom and for only a few seconds at a time. Needless to say we did not come tight on any that day. Saturday morning the wind was strong out of the east making traveling tough and spotting feeding false albacore even more difficult in the already white capped seas. As soon as 9:30am came the albies got the memo, and began feeding through 11:30am. It was quite difficult to battle the seas, wind, rain, fleet of boats, and pending thunderstorm in the distance to hook and land an albie. We did have one hookup, but for some unknown reason the line broke at the lure, bad knot maybe? That was our only real shot of the day. Our boat did end up landing an XL porgy while killing time waiting for albies to show.
Sunday morning we learned our lesson from the day before, and headed out at (8 instead of 6:30) of the harbor in hopes of connecting with our first October albie. We counted on the fact that the albies were on a tight feeding window of 9:30-11:30 just like the day before, and we expected them to show themselves again at the same time. They sure did, but they were late by 5 minutes haha. We hooked and landed a total of 7 albies. The wind was again strong, but out of the north. It laid down quite nicely come 10am, which allowed all of the fair weather fisherman ample opportunity to invade the local reef in search of the speedsters. There was at least 20 boats around us for most of the morning. We soon realized that the fish were not localized to that one spot, and we ran away from the fleet to find our own fish. The albies readily ate a 7/8 sized Hogy Epoxy Jig in bone, silver, and pink with a quick retrieve on the surface. We had one double. Some of the feeds lasted up to a minute or two at a time, with multiple feeds happening within a 5-10 acre area at one time. My buddy Jon got his first, (second, and third albie) ever. I am hoping and expecting this week for the albies to fill in the inshore areas around the islands and feed in areas as shallow as 3' deep, as in years past. 
