A few weeks back, I made a kayak run to chase down everyone’s favorite inshore tuna-clone, the false albacore. After failing to find much at all in the protected waters of a harbor mouth, I ventured “out front” to search for greener pastures. With hard east winds, I hugged the eastern shoreline and, in spite of finding some bird activity, there were no fish to be had. I reluctantly rounded the end of the beach and faced the heavy winds. In the distance, I saw two large flocks of birds diving on bait, a couple boats were zipping between the schools as some kind of fish, intermittently, pushed bait to the surface.
Cautiously, I ventured into the wind and swell. I won’t lie and say I was feeling 100% confident in my decision to take on this adventure by myself. But the lure of these massive flocks of gulls urged me on and I felt safer knowing there were boats in the area that could rescue me if the unthinkable happened. I remember asking myself, multiple times, “Am I really going to do this?” For a short time I pedaled slowly, but as the promise of hooking up grew closer, my pace quickened.
With my eyes trained on the wheeling and diving gulls, I almost missed the first blitz that popped up within casting range. There was no mistaking what they were; forceful, porpoising breaks, high-speed lunges. I fumbled for the closest spinning rod and slung a 3/4-ounce Exo Jig ahead of their path. On that first cast, I had one blowing up on the jig but “ran out of runway” before the fish could take it at the yak. On my next cast, a fish exploded on the tiny jig and set off on a blistering run. I always feel like I need to catch my breath about midway into that first albie run of the year, it always takes me by surprise! After landing that fish, determination and excitement set in, and – before I knew it – I was enjoying the wind and waves and the excitement that they added to the chase.
My score for the day was over 20 bonito and four albies, which added some serious fuel to my obsessive need to get back out there. Which I did the following day with a friend; the bite was slower, but still decent with around 20 bonito landed between us, one albie and one Spanish mackerel. The waves weren’t as much of a factor that day and we had a great time.
Fast-forward about 10 days and I was back out in the same area, hoping for some more magic, but the fish were not in a magical mood. In fact, I don’t think there were many albies or bonito around at all. When we were launching, I could hear the waves – nearly a half-mile away – smashing the rocks out front. So we started by checking sheltered waters and then made the run out to the ocean.
At first glance, things didn’t look too scary, other than a lot more whitewater around the reefs and shorelines, and there really wasn’t any wind to speak of. But as we cut through a gap and faced into the southeast swell being sent ashore by a hurricane churning east of Bermuda, we found ourselves climbing and descending “hills” that were large enough to disappear behind. My eyes scoured the next mile of water, two boats huddled in the lee of a point, a few others buzzed about like yellow jackets at a picnic, no birds, no concentrated action and waves that would have felt fine in a boat but seemed mountainous in a kayak.
Looking back, I don’t think they were much bigger than what I had experienced on that first day, but it’s funny how the promise of action can change what you’re willing to endure. If we had seen a big tornado of birds out there, I know we would have soldiered on. But with the ocean looking desolate and slightly miffed, we turned tail and changed our target to tog. Which ended up saving the day.
