Albies 2025

[Woolly Bugger]

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[Sedition and Pockets]

Who you fishing with?

[Woolly Bugger]

Who you fishing with?

Nobody at the moment — stay tuned

[trout-r-us]

As far as reports, Unrelenting WIND is all I've heard.

[Woolly Bugger]

I'm working on a very sparse report — but fish (few) were caught and beers were consumed

[Woolly Bugger]

albies 2025

Plan was for two weeks on Harkers, the fist week was for the GF, my daughter and her boyfriend, and I to hang out and eat seafood and take in the sights. Fishing was to begin on Thursday through Saturday, with Rob, Larry and Rhody. Reports were coming in of low numbers of fish sighted let alone caught. The wind has been relenless and not favorable, but we go out and fish the lee side of the banks.

The day starts ealry, leving the dock at first light. We ran all over the place looking for fish and it was late in the afternoon when Rhody hooked one. A short time later I got into a hot fish, it ran me into the backing, jumped, clearing the water by a couple of feet, ran back to the boat causing me to reel in furiously but then it ran hard again, and then nothing, slack line. Oh, shit, I reeled in, and there at the end of the leader was the remains of a knot. A poorly tied knot that I had tied in the dark the night before, but I'm counting that fish. It's all in the bite and initial runs anyway.


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to be continued...

[Woolly Bugger]

Friday 11/7

We had been working on a puzzle and finally compledted it Thursday night.

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6:00 AM ready to go, oh no, Rhody forgot his phone, the gate's locked, have to run... thrity minutes later...

we ran all over again, looking for fish, looking for birds, it was a long day with only a few desperate shots, no connections. Dispare.

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Dinner at the Fish Hook was the highlight of the day.

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Half day comming up on Saturday.

[Woolly Bugger]

Saturday --

Last day fishing with Rob, Larry, and Jamie. It was a planned 1/2 day.

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Driver and PtFranze were already in the bight and hooked up.

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The fish were popping up in the bight all morning and we chased down a few.

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They were in close, pushing the bait up against the sand. It was pretty wild and the best action we saw in the three days I was out and the weather conditons weren't half bad either.

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Larry, on his sixth and final day, finally got hooked up and landed an albie.

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Jason has a story to tell when the ventured out and ran into some trouble.

The action continued but we headed for the barn as scheduled. Later that evening we showed up at Jason's for an awesome low country boil with some fresh shrimp from Miss Gina's

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Rody and I were taking Sunday off, but were planning to fish with Capt. Sarah on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were with Ruben and the Riverbum was schduled for Friday.

[Woolly Bugger]

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Sunday was a day off for us, but Jason was out catching them and had 6 on the day, while his companion, Patrick caugth none all while we were off for brunch at the Beaufort Gocery Company, which was delicious. We all went for the seafood omlet special, Jamie and I doubled down on Bloody Marys while my GF opted for Mimosas. After eathing we spent the rest of the morning walking around the town.

Sunset 5:02 and then we started cooking dinner.

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Jamie snagged some steaks form Larry's, they were bueatiful and about 2" thick!

While searing the meat we got a little smoke in the house so we opened the deck door and a window across the room.
It was a comfortably warm breeze, so we left it opoen while we ate. Then, just as we were finishing up a sparrow flew in. Oh, crap.
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 We spent the next half hour chasing that damn bird up and down the stairs repeatitly until it finally made it's way into the 3rd floor bathroom, where, after many attempts, I was able to corner it and carry the little bugger down the sprial stariase, down the hall and down 17 more stept to the release it out on the deck. Whew.

After all that chaos, we got gear ready for fishing the next day, and also checked the weather for Tuesday and Wednesday as we knew a blow was coming.

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[Woolly Bugger]

Monday, whish I could say the weather was great but it was blowing pretty hard, just not hard enough to keep us off the water.

Once again we ran all over the place looking for birds and albies, we may have had a few desperate shots, but they were slim and far between.

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Sunset 5:01
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The wind started whipping in the evening and there was no chance that we would be fishing for the next several days, so it's back to puzzles.

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Jamie pulled out Tuesday morning and I just hung out.

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Wednesday was another blow day. I took a drive out to Fort Macon, hadn't been there in 50 years, discovered a new visitor center and walked the beech and nature trails.

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DSFK
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DSFK
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The sea was angry that day my friends.

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Sunset 5:01
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While eating dinner at the fishhook, I ran into four guys from Connecticut who were down for a few days, the were going out with Mauser, I told them, thinking of the lousy fishing and weather, that they should have stayed home.

[Woolly Bugger]

Wednesday evening....

Me: Whatcha thinking about tomorrow?

Sarah: It's going to gust up to 25 NW in the morning. I'm up for taking a look, it you want. We can leave at 7.

Me: Let me check with Ruben.

Sarah: Cool - I totally understand if you decide not to go.


I called Ruben, and he said he would go, beats the alternat of sitting around not fishing....


Message to Sarah: We'll be there at 7!

Sarah: Thumb up!


Well it was blowing pretty good, and we poked our nose out past the hook and it was pretty damn rough, even if we found some fish it was doubful in my mind that we could make a cast. We took shelter inside the hook, but there weren't any albies there and the water was turbid from two days of strong winds. Out of desperation, we anchored up at the pier and started casting gear for drum.

That didn't take long, with me in the bow casting gear, and Ruben at the stern with a full sink line. I caught 3 or 4 in quick order.

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We swaped out positions and Ruben caught a couple of bigger drum, before we switched again.

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That went on for a while and we caught about 20 in all, but it wasn't what we were after. Sarah asked if we wanted to call it a half day. I tried to get Ruben to make the decision, but he left it up to me. I said lets stay out. Ruben was gung ho, but I think Sarah was hoping to get in early.

No more fish were caught and we headed for the slip an hour or so early calling it a 3/4 day.

More puzzle time, and dinner at the Fish Hook.

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Sunset 5:02

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The Riverbum showed up and we got ready for Friday, my last fishing day.

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[Woolly Bugger]

Fraidy was looking to be the best day for the wind, and enough time for the water to clear a bit, now all we had to do was go find fish.

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While waiting for Sarah to bring the boat around we ran into John Houlcher, who hase been guiding in Alaska in the Summer and chasing Albies in the fall. A fine young man and great guide.

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Out on the sound at sunrise.

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Seas were calmer and several boats had run up the east side and we heard reports of them spotting fish, but they were miles up the beach past the lighthouse. We were patroling along the shoals, and thought about crossing over but the winds were shifting and it would have been a nasty ride to get through and a long run up to where the fish had been seen.

Instead we ran south and that the ticket. We finally ran into larger schools of albies the were staying up long enough to get a cast or two to them before they moved on out of reach.

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Eric was the first to hook up and land one, then he hooked another one that broke off because of a line management problem; big feet.

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Then we doubled up with Erik catching he big fish of the day.

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We chased after the fish for a couple of hours more but couldn't hook up despite several decent shots.

Back at the dock we bid fairwell to Capt. Sarah, making a committment to do it all again next year.

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Sunset photo 4:57

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Jason attempted to fish Saturday but there were white caps in the sound and he returned by 9:30 as I was headed home.

[Big J]

Well that didn't suck.  Glad you all were able to find some better conditions and land a few!

[Woolly Bugger]

Reports are coming in this week of most excellent fishing, Ruben hooked up with 9 the other day brining in 6 to the boat. They got out to the east side for that action.  Jason is out today, catching albies and bluefin. 


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[Woolly Bugger]

Jason shot this bluefin action the other day. Brian posted up some epic shote on his socials.