2025 Fall Nearshore (Albie Season) Report - Part 1

It's early November and I'm a little bit past the halfway point of the fall False Albacore season here on the Crystal Coast.  This makes my 20th year chasing Albies, and my 14th year guiding for them.  In all the years I have pursued them, I've realized more this year than anything, that I don't know squat about these speedsters.  We have experienced the weirdest weather of any fall I can remember, and with no consistency day to day, the Albacore have been nearly impossible to predict.  Tough weather days that turned out excellent, and perfect weather days that left us scratching our heads...  I'll get more into that down the road, but for now, I wanted to look back at the first two months of Albie season.  And when I say, the first two months, I mean August 15th to October 15th.

Yeah, you heard me right.  I said August 15th.  I don't mean we saw an Albie in mid-August, that's not that uncommon of a thing.  What I mean, is that we started being able to consistently target schools of Albies in mid-August.  The first ones that showed up were these tiny micro Albies.  Let's just say, they were Al-Bae's.  Within a week after that, we started seeing the 4-6lbers that have been common in September the last few years.

Along with Albies, we had a great run of Spanish Mackerel in August.

And for another year, we have continued to enjoy a great Bluefish fishery.  

And although we still have those little 1lb snapper Blues like we have had forever, the influx of larger 3-5 blues have been consistent.  

By the end of August, we had a good number of False Albacore off the beaches.  I was still mostly running Redfish charters, but we had several days that were pretty enough to slide out the inlet and go hunt along the beachfront.

We kicked off September with a continued consistent Albie bite.  Keep in mind, this is a full month before most people (and guides) start pursuing these fish.  They were here from Bogue Inlet to Cape Lookout and in really good targetable numbers.

Most of these fish averaged 3-5, maybe 6lbs at the most, but they still fight incredibly hard at that size.

We caught a few oddballs in September too, like Leatherjackets and Houndfish.

Our offshore wrecks in the 10-15 mile range produced some good Amberjacks too.  September seems to give us some of the best weather to get out after these bulldogs.

The Spanish Mackerel continued to be an ample target along our western beachfronts and eastward to the Cape.  

By mid-September, the Albies became the star of the show, becoming much more dominant on the scene.

A predominant North to Northeast wind kept the bait flowing and the Albies gorging themselves off our beaches through September.

Honestly, it was so good that I even got to catch my yearly Albie.  It's got to be pretty good for me to agree to pick up a rod, and on this day, my anglers had hooked enough that I was presented the opportunity.  I love living vicariously through my anglers as they catch Albies we team work to get, but every once in a while, it's nice to feel the pull!

Those September Albacore, although not giants, really put an 8wt setup to the test.  In this shot, Colin is putting the heat on a diving fish with a Mauser Waterman 890 and a Hatch Iconic 7plus.   The line is a RIO Outbound Short Intermediate, which is one of my favorites for Albies lately.

We send every Albie back to fight another day.

Surf Candies are a go to fly for these fish.  Tied in different sizes and colors, they do a great job matching a lot of the Albies favorite forage fish, like Silversides and Bay Anchovies.

As we entered the third week of September, the Albie bite showed no signs of slowing down.

The final week of September was no different.  Lots of quality single digit sized fish around, and although we had a few days when they were picky, most days it wasn't too hard to match the hatch.

The last 3 or 4 years, I've taken anglers fishing for Albies in late September with the understanding that there was no guarantee.  We knew we'd have Mackerel and Blues around as a backup, but we could find Albies about half the time.  After this past September, I'm convinced that September is becoming a go to Albie month for me.  At this point, I'm pretty comfortable recommending people to come target Albies with me at any point in September, with the second half of the month having lots of potential.

The last few days of September were pretty interesting for me.  We had tons of fish well inside the inlet, with many being in the no wake zone of the State Port.  We spent 4 days targeting tons of fish on tiny larval bait inside the port among the fuel docks and large cargo ships.

The first few days in the port, the North winds were blowing pretty hard, and the fish were blitzing bait everywhere you looked.

On the final day of September, with two major tropical storms off our coast, the North winds were gusting to over 30mph.  The only safe place to be, was on the lee side of the port wall.  At the same time, we had a big southerly swell pushing into the inlet from the passing storms.  On that last day, we saw a fraction of the fish return to the port and inlet.  Most likely the huge swell in the ocean kept them offshore that day.  We still managed to stick a couple fish before calling it a half day and running home to hide from the gale.

The storms passing along our coast cost me four back-to-back days of charters.  And unfortunately, this wasn't the last time we lost trips in October due to crazy weather.  It seemed like that first storm set in motion a month of the most random weather patterns.  Throughout October, the wind seemed to blow a different direction and speed every single day.  Some days, I think it blew every direction and every speed.  It's normal to get a few days of NE 25-30 (which is still fishable) in the fall, but it's unheard of to get a day of NE 30 sandwiched between two days of SW 30.  Even on the pretty days, the Albies were unpredictable, because of something that happened a day or two before.  Consistency makes for good Albie fishing and thus began the battle to guess what the Albies were going to do next amidst extremely inconsistent weather.  I've never worked so hard, ran so far, burned so much gas, and tried so many things to make for successful days during Albie season.

Hard work pays off though, as they say, and sometimes it's not as important to catch a bunch of Albies, as it is to catch a few important Albies.  

We had good days and tough days in early October, and I appreciate all of my amazing anglers that kept a great attitude when the day challenged us.

About the 5th of October, we started finding Albies in places we don't normally have to look, like 10 miles off the beach in 70ft of water, over shipwrecks.  Same old Albies, just not running along the beaches like we prefer.  

Most of these fish offshore, were feeding on tiny larval baitfish, something we often refer to as "snot bait".  Snot bait is something more commonly seen in September.  Where were all the bigger 2-3" baitfish?  Fortunately, with a tiny enough fly and a fast enough strip, the Albies still fell for our offerings.

Although we mostly fly fish for these speedsters, we can easily (often more easily) catch them on spin.  Whether on 2"-bait, 4"-inch bait, or 1/2" bait, I have a few tricks up my sleeve for catching these fish on artificials.

The fish started to get a little chunkier in October and we upgraded the size of our gear, but honestly, any size Albie brings on a smile.

We also found some Reef Donkeys (Greater Amberjack) on those wrecks while looking for the Albacore schools.

For the third year in a row, we have also been tagging some of our Albies.  Every bit of information we can gather, helps in the challenge of managing a very misunderstood species.

By the time we entered the second week of October, I had some great regulars in town, and we worked hard and stuck some more Albies.  At this point, it had been a few weeks since we hadn't had to earn an Albie.  We caught fish, and maybe those catches were just a little sweeter, based on the amount of sweat equity we had to put in to get them.

The second week of October was a rocking week to catch Amberjack.  The topwater bite on our wrecks was absolutely insane.  I could throw a giant hookless popper out over a wreck and give it a few pops and instantly have 20 Amberjack breaching the surface fighting over it.

This bait and switch technique works really well for getting AJ's up from the depths and close enough to the boat to sight cast a popper fly to.  A lot of these brutes were fed and hooked less than 10ft off the tip of my anglers 12wt fly rods.  What a show!

There are much bigger AJ's than these on some of our offshore wrecks, some fish approaching 100lbs.  That being said, a 20-30lb fish is perfect on a fly rod.  Even at that size, with heavy fly gear, you are grunting and breaking a sweat trying to get that fish off the wreck and back to the boat.  Pound for pound, these are one of the strongest fighting fish in our NC waters.

I love targeting these fish, but just being out there, in the blue water, without a shoreline in sight, is pretty exciting.  On any given day, you will see anything from Barracuda and Cobia to Spotted Dolphins, to Sea Turtles, to giant Bluefin Tuna around these wrecks.

At the midpoint of October, everyday was a variety show.  We spent a lot of time looking for Albies, but we also spent a lot of time chasing big chopper Bluefish on the shoals and running offshore for wreck species.

Almaco Jack, another common wreck species.

Paying the Tax Man....

We'll stop there for now.  Once I finish out my 2025 Albie season in another month, I'll put out a second half of the season report.  How will it end?  Did the fishing get easier?  Did the weather get its act together?  Did I lose my mind?  Stayed tuned for the next episode!