Up until today I had not seen an albie in RI waters and I did not know of anyone who had caught one. I was beginning to think this albie season would be a bust. That all changed with an afternoon blitz that we ran into along the south shore from the boat.They were around the location we fished, big time. We found marauding schools of them tearing through schools of bay anchovies. The water would be boiling with them at times as they were really in a feeding frenzy. However, as is often the case, the fish were fussy. I started off with the ole reliable Kastamster XL and got one fish on it. After casting it into several boiling schools and getting nothing, I switched to the float and blue Deceiver fly set up, my albie killer from past years. That did the trick as my brother Steve and I landed good numbers of them.
While we got all our fish from the boat, I can tell you these fish were close enough for shore anglers to catch them. At times they were busting practically in the wash. But, I saw no one fishing from the shore for them.I will also tell you that these fish were along one specific shoreline today. They were not in multiple spots. We searched miles and miles of shoreline before finding a concentration of them along with bait. There was little or no bait along most of the oceanfront that we covered. So, while we hit it big today, I don't feel as if there are a lot of them around yet. They are concentrated in specific locations and you have to find them. Not like other years when they were all over the place.
