Me and Funny Fish

My first experience with false albacore and bonito was with Mike Earley and his father while on their 18' Parker center console. It was the first time I had been fishing with Mike on his boat about 4 years ago. It was early September and Mike told me that there were reports of false albacore around. False? Why is it called a false albacore? After a brief explanation we were off and running around looking for them. We were in front of the opening to West Falmouth Harbor and Mike shouts, "There." Right off the bow the seagulls and fish just began to break. I was sitting on the seat in front of the console and I stood up and made my first cast at a school of false albacore. I did not even get to crank the reel and I was hooked up. It was a great fight and I was so amazed at the speed at which it travelled. Unfortunately, the fish went under the boat and snapped the line. It wasn't until later that I realized how hard it actually is to hook up with one of these fish. To be honest, I haven't even hooked up with a false albacore since.

Two years ago when I first got the Whaler the "funny fish" season was poor and there were very few reports of these fish around. I did see a couple fish jump one morning in front of Old Silver Beach, but it looked like they were just having fun and not even breaking on bait fish. This past year however was amazing for these fish. On the last week of August these fish were blitzing all over Buzzards Bay. I spent a whole day chasing them around like an idiot and did not even get a hook up. The next day I put a long leader of flurocarbon on and cast into another school and it lined up perfectly as they were heading right towards me and my lure looked like it was part of the school. Bang, my first Bonito. I was psyched that I had a camera and Gwendolyn was excited to take pictures of her proud dad. Now for the embarrassing part. I felt pretty sure it was a bonito at the time, but I started to doubt myself. So I ended up putting the fish back in the water and only after I looked at the pictures and compared with other photos I found online that I was sure it was a bonito. Hopefully the picture will work when I attempt to post it.