If you love the fall albie run, you owe it to the bay anchovy. This tiny, delicate baitfish forms enormous shimmering clouds, anglers call it rainbait for the way it dimples the surface like rain, and those clouds are exactly what pull false albacore and bonito into our waters each fall. It is also the bait that makes them so maddeningly hard to fool.
What they are
Bay anchovies are very small, slim, semi-transparent baitfish, often just one to three inches, with a faint silver stripe and a big eye. They mass in huge numbers, and when a predator carves into a cloud, the whole surface erupts. The problem for anglers: your fly or lure is competing with a million tiny naturals.
Where and when
Rainbait is a fall-run story. The clouds gather around harbor mouths, inlets, points and rips where current concentrates them, and the funny fish set up to ambush. This is classic Cape and Islands fall fishing.
Tip When fish are blitzing rainbait and ignoring you, downsize to the smallest fly or metal you can cast and lead the school. Sometimes the answer is a fly so small it looks absurd, that is what it takes to match a one-inch anchovy.
How to match them
- Tiny epoxy flies and sparse small patterns, often smaller than feels right, on a long light leader.
- Small dense metals and epoxy jigs you can cast into the wind and retrieve fast.
- Long fluorocarbon leaders, clear water and big-eyed fish demand it.
For the slightly larger cousin that often mixes in, see silversides.