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How to catch Albacore
Albacore feed in 60–72°F water and bite best at 62–68°F. Fish Scouter's season calendar follows them in 8 waters.
About
The longfin: a canyon tuna with pectoral fins like wings, white meat, and a run that strips a reel. A late-summer Northeast canyon fish.
How to fish it
Troll the canyon edges and the temperature breaks, or chunk at night with the yellowfin.
What it eats
Live bait for it
SquidStrips on a bottom rig for snapper, grunts and porgies; whole on a deep-drop rig.What to fish it with
the sizes that fish itThe rule
not confirmed hereRules differ by state — check NOAA HMS (a federal HMS permit is required) before you keep one.
The current rule →Where it is, month by month
North Pacific albacore make one of the longest loops in fishing. Juveniles cross the ocean between Japan and North America; each summer the schools push toward the West Coast following the transition zone and its warm breaks, reaching southern California and then Oregon and Washington from July into October — the boats run 30 to 100 miles out looking for 60–64°F blue water. By late fall they head back into the western Pacific. In the Atlantic, albacore show in the canyons off the Northeast from July into the fall, trolled along the shelf edge with the yellowfin.