One of our NC Albies was re-captured in Alabama!

I recently received some pretty exciting news from the American Saltwater Guides Association that one of the Albies we tagged in North Carolina last October, was just caught off the coast of Alabama!  This news shakes up a lot of our assumptions on what these fish are actually doing, how they are migrating and on their population dynamics.

Here's a little backstory...  On October 17th, I had anglers Kevin Fuller and Brett Stalcup onboard fly fishing for Albies.  We ended up across the shoals and out in front of the lighthouse.  Sometime around 8am we located several pods of Albies, and the bite really turned on.  We started tagging some of them, including an Albie that Kevin caught at 9:28am which received tag #23991.  The Albie was quickly released back into the water.  (Note:  We don't usually photograph the Albies we release since we are trying to get them back into the water quickly.)  The above photo is of another Albie that Kevin caught that same morning.

All in all, we tagged and 78 Albies between October and November of 2023.  Would they survive the release?  Would they be breakfast for sharks?  Would any ever be recaptured?  We hoped our work would pay off.

Last week I received an email from Sue Bertoline at the ASGA, letting me know that Albie #23991 had been recaptured 20 miles offshore from Fort Morgan (Mobile Bay) Alabama.  She was waiting for more information.  This morning, through the magic of social media, I got in touch with AJ Simmons, the angler who caught the fish.  I'm not sure who was more excited about the deal, the angler who caught the fish, or the guide who tagged it.

Image courtesy of AJ Simmons

Here's the Albie we tagged 284 days prior.  It grew 2" in that time span.  AJ also mentioned that it had a 10" slash down one side, that looked like a Billfish had tried to eat it at some point.  What's more amazing than the odds of it being re-captured, is where it was re-captured.

There is a population of Albies that spend the late summer in the NE, mainly around Massachusetts.  There are also good numbers of Albies that are found in South Florida each winter.  We have fish that come through North Carolina each spring from March/April and again in Sept/Oct/Nov.  The assumption would be that this was one population moving up and down the east coast.  Tagging efforts (acoustic telemetry tags) deployed in Cape Cod, affirmed that belief, as those tagged fish later pinged off of Cape Lookout that fall, and then off of Key West that winter.  That being said, we also have fish that are found offshore in NC year-round, that also sometimes appear along our beaches.  It's not unheard of to catch an Albie off of our beaches in NC any month of the year.

Now there is also a population of Albies that are found in the Gulf of Mexico.  I always assumed that those fish were from a different population than ours, possibly mixing with our fish in South Florida in the winter, but otherwise staying separate and doing their own thing.

And then, we have Albie #23991, caught off Cape Lookout on October 17th, 2023, and then caught off Alabama on July 27th, 2024.  This fish seemed to break the mold.  Turns out, a few other fish from Cape Cod and Cape Lookout have been pinging in the Gulf this year.  Most have not traveled beyond Tampa though, so #23991 is the furthest west of the tagged Albies.

Photo courtesy of AJ Simmons

So, what does all of this mean?  Well, it means that we don't have these fish figured out...yet.  There is still a ton of research to be done.  We may only be starting to grasp what these fish are doing.  If #23391 had not been recaptured, where would it be going next?  Was it going to zip straight to Cape Cod in August?  Hang in the Gulf until October and then shoot over to Cape Lookout to get some more of our tasty Anchovies?  Or would it have stayed in the Gulf until December and then headed to Key West?  Do they have a crazy migration route that they stick to every year, or do they change it up depending on conditions and food sources?  There is so much to be learned from continued research on these fish.

Here's something else to think about.  From Alabama to Key West to Cape Lookout to Cape Cod, we just might all be sharing the same fish.  The population may be smaller than we think, and they are just covering a lot of ground...or I should say, water.