Tougher than boots

Tougher than boots

Martyn White | Thursday, 1 February 2024

With Hawaiian Dave arriving back from Thailand last week after the great seabass session I had with Raslan, I was under pressure to go out in the bay again. Surprisingly when he messaged me on Sunday, there was still a slot available for Monday night. So, despite the good forecast I scrapped my carping plans and we arranged to meet at the dock.

It was COLD, much colder than the previous week with temperatures hovering around freezing with a nice "refreshing" breeze. We started right at the top of the tide, so were looking forward to plenty of action when it started running. That basically was what we got, the first sopt was a liitle slow, but did produce a few bass. By the time we moved to the second spot the current was moving nicely and the bass were going to town on the small bait gathered under the shelter of a container ship. We quickly put a few in the boat, but there were lots of very small bass making a nuisance of themselves so we moved on. As the night went on we moved from point to point picking up decent numbers of schoolies in the 35-50cm range as we went. Unfortunately it was too choppy to go and try the offshore platforms or anchored ships in search of better fish. It wasn't as crazy as the previous week, but we still had 25 or 30 fish each, which isn't a bad night but a couple of bigger fish would have been nice. Much the same as the previous week, the fish were feeding on 7cm-ish anchovies so at least we could fish the 6wts to get the most out of the fish. I went for a tan and silver albiewhore again, as it's a great imitation of this kind of bait. The silver lateral scale really seems to make a difference compared to pearl when fishing at night, probably because of the higher contrast.

One thing that I have been thinking about is how well the albiewhores stand up to a beating when tied correctly. In the photo of the day you can see a new one and the one I used last week after over 60 fish. It's beat up but I could/would have kept fishing it without concern. No need to waste time getting the box out and tying on a new fly - something I think is always important, but especially in winter with cold wet hands. The reason I say when tied correctly is that nowadays I see videos of albiewhores being tied in a way that is easier, but is almost custom designed to make them fall apart after a few fish. Unfortunately, I also see pictures from people who have used these videos to learn the fly. Usually it's the saddle & flash tail a cactus chenille body, palmered hackle with the lateral scale tied at the rear and folded up the sides and fastened at the head end. Generally it's finished off with a fish mask. Theres nothing to protect the body or hackle, and while it might last a few fish, it will burst from teeth, the first tooth might burst it. Tied with the hot glue or resin method, theyre very tough as the adhesive is in the body material, contacting the shank, protecting the hackle and flash that is bonded to the flank of the fly. Everything essentially becomes a single piece with every application of resin or glue bonding to the one before. Essentially you end up with a fly that is as close to bombproof as they come.


Here's the original albiwhore video. I prefer UV resin to hotglue, but either works so use whatever is comfortable for you.