“What if we land a world length record albie on fly?” This is the question Captain Alex Gurnee posed as we chatted over the phone, five time zones away from each other, while discussing the possibilities and potential of venturing to an entirely new saltwater fishery, the Catalonian coast of the Mediterranean. After some nitty-gritty research and proper trip planning, what started as a pipe dream quickly evolved into an international mission.
The Team
We didn’t realize it at the time, but our mission to land an IGFA world length record for false albacore began in the summer of 2024, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Alex Gurnee and I met a few years prior in 2022 in the Yucatan backcountry. I encountered him quite literally in the Mexican jungle, with a fly rod in hand. When he told me he was sleeping in his mosquito-ridden rental car and living off of ham sandwiches and Tecates in pursuit of permit, I knew instantly we would be friends and have stayed in touch since, despite him being from County Cork, Ireland.
A few seasons later, Alex joined me on the Cape, in search of his first striper. We hatched a plan to get him on board a particularly fishy vessel with a particularly fishy friend of mine. Enter Ian Bragdon: one of my long-time best buds and fishing partners. Being one of my few other friends who has ventured down to Mexico with me to permit fish, Ian was eager to get a chance to get on the water with Alex.
When Alex arrived to the Cape in mid-August, an early set of false albacore and bonito had arrived in Cape waters. We ended up pivoting our day of fishing from bass to hard tails. On the water, we zipped around the south side of the Cape, pulling up to fast and furious feeds, trying to rope an albie. It didn’t take long for us to get tight, and our false albacore career together as a team officially started. Little did we know that the three of us were laying the foundation for a record-chasing trip to Spain the following year.
The Call to Action:
After our Cape trip, Alex purchased his first vessel back home in Ireland, a 19-foot 1993 Boston Whaler Outrage. He re-powered the boat and customized it for his fishing style, then reached out to Ian and me with a hell of a proposal. Longing to bring his new vessel to warmer, more species-diverse waters compared to Ireland, Alex set his sights on the Spanish Mediterranean fishery. Bluefin tuna, Mediterranean spearfish, leerfish, and false albacore, or as they’re known in most parts of the world, little tunny, were apparently all targetable on fly gear. The best part? All of these pelagic species are known to frequent inshore waters off the Spanish coastline, sometimes even coming within a few hundred yards of shore. When I asked Alex, “Why the Spanish Med?”, he replied, “It’s the closest bluefin fishery that allows foreign registered boats that got me interested; then I saw the size of the albies, and my mind was made up.”
Alex decided the prime time to fish was going to be mid-April. His extensive sleuthing told us that the spring season on the Spanish Med held opportunity for tuna, albies, and spearfish on the surface… we told Alex to pin down his dates and then say less—we’re in. It was going to shatter our bank accounts and push our employer’s patience to the brink, but hey, all in good fun.
Trip Planning/Logistics
Both the brains and the brawn behind our Spain trip, Alex had a hell of a task list and journey ahead of him before we could get lines in the water. One doesn’t simply BYOB (bring-your-own-boat) to a foreign country, so we had some hoops to jump through. Ireland and Spain are both members of the EU, so getting Alex’s Whaler across the Bay of Biscay and into Spain was going to be tricky, but certainly not impossible. Then there was the logistics of where to keep the boat, which port to fish from, lodging, and countless other little details. If there’s anyone I can think of who can gracefully navigate red tape and formulate a solid plan despite a multitude of hurdles, it’s Alex Gurnee. A veteran traveler and adventure angler, Alex had regaled us with stories of DIY fishing trips to the Andaman Islands, Nicaragua, and other far-flung destinations—so I had faith in him from the start.
After a few more weeks of back and forth, Alex had come up with a plan for ferrying and trailering his vessel, found us a port that would accommodate the boat on a slip, and a rental property within walking distance of the harbor. He also sorted out the boat registration and helped Ian and me navigate how to purchase the proper fishing licenses. Once we arrived, all we would have to do was crush sangria and tapas and walk ourselves to the boat each morning. The trip was undoubtedly a team effort, but I have to credit Alex with masterminding the whole endeavor.
Gear
Once Alex had solved most pieces of our trip’s logistical puzzle, we began to talk gear. On top of requiring a quiver of fly rods and reels suitable for pelagic applications, we decided to bring some spinning gear to help cover water and put some fish in the boat. Alex believed we may have shots at false albacore upwards of 30 pounds, and there could be bluefin mixed in, so we knew we had to be prepared with burly equipment. Then there were all the other bits—a first aid kit, bibs, and deck boots for running offshore, etc. If you’ve ever packed for an all-in fishing trip, then you know the gear list has a way of growing and growing, no matter how minimalist you might try and be. Lucky for us, the three of us had the opportunity to all put our heads together in the same room when we rendezvoused for our Mexico trip a few months prior to our departure for Spain. We looked for permit tails by day, and discussed how to target Mediterranean Spear Fish by night—it was all coming together.
First Days on the Water
I had plans to backpack around Europe ahead of the trip, so Ian and I ended up meeting in Barcelona. We promptly crushed lunch, grabbed a bottle of red, and hauled our ungodly amount of equipment through the city to catch a train down the coast and find Alex. Bursting at the seams to run offshore and find some foamers, we rigged rods, prepped the boat, and made about two miles of ham sandwiches—our long-standing lunch mascot over the years. Blessed with a solid weather window for the first few days of our trip, we were prepared to hit the Med HARD in order to get our bearings and begin to learn the fishery.
Day one inevitably began with a violent hangover for the three of us as we putted out of the harbor mouth… all that trip planning finally becoming reality was a bit exciting to say the least. As the sun climbed higher and the Spanish coastline came into view, we all audibly gasped at the sight of the sierras reaching up to grasp at the clouds from the mainland. It was a first for all of us—looking back towards shore and seeing picturesque mountains. We definitely weren’t on Cape Cod anymore. The novel beauty of the encircling mountain views was added to by the stunning hues of blue and green we motored over as we steamed further offshore. Thermoclines? Conflicting currents? We weren’t sure what was responsible for the definitive color breaks in the sea, but we did know it was a detail we should pay attention to if we wanted to properly learn the fishery.
Within a few hours, we spotted an anomaly finning around a few hundred yards from the Whaler. We snuck over to what we thought at first might be a Mola, and got our first look at a stunning Mediterranean Spearfish. We ended up eventually spooking the fish after casting on it for a few minutes, but the reality that we were boots on the boat targeting new species in the Med instantly sank in for all of us—it was officially game on.
The First Blitz
Not hours later, we spotted birds picking on the horizon. It was obvious to all of us that we were witnessing some kind of feed, so Alex pinned the throttle, and we rocketed towards the action. With no boats in sight on our first day of fishing, we had no idea what to expect when we pulled up to the feed. As we came off plane and approached the cacophony of sea birds, we realized right away that the scene in front of us was a raging bluefin tuna blitz. Porpoising fish, slashing sickle fins, showering bait, and foaming whitewater instantly spiked our pulses; this is what we came for. The sight of a Mediterranean foamer was as glorious as we had imagined, and we would realize in the days to come that this was a considerably small blitz. Day one had wildly exceeded what we had hoped to witness on the water, and it became clear that we would most definitely be casting to fish, not just looking for them.
The next few days were spent covering water around the Ebro Delta in an attempt to pin down some waypoints and derive usable data for finding and targeting fish. We were shocked at the abundance of feeds and the lack of other anglers, only encountering a few other sport fishing boats throughout the week. We scored BIG time with our initial weather window, allowing us to motor 20+ miles offshore in Alex’s 19-foot Whaler and really push the limits of what we felt comfortable exploring. By the end of the week, we had acquired a plethora of waypoints where we had spotted feeds, and in doing so, had managed to highlight a few zones that seemed to be consistently fishy. We barely had time to pause for lunch or even to hydrate, for that matter. It’s easy to forget to eat your ham sammy when three different apocalyptic blitzes are occurring within a nautical mile of you.
One of the most notable details of the fishery that Ian brought to our attention was the fact that the tuna feeds seemed to persist all day long, even into the evening hours. This was starkly different from the offshore and inshore fishery we were used to back on Cape Cod in which your window to find tuna and albie feeds is typically limited to the early morning hours. While reflecting on this detail, Ian commented, “Back home, it’s rare to see foaming tuna feeds past noon. The same goes for albies; sure, we have some afternoon feeds, but nothing like that. This was like having your best, ferocious morning feeds, but at 5 pm.”
Figuring Out the Fish
The first step of figuring out any new fishery is finding the bait and lures or flies to imitate them. Thankfully, Alex had done his due diligence and read up on the expected bait sources, so we knew this part of the Med was an anchovie-fueled fishery in the springtime. What we did not realize was just how impossibly small the anchovies would be to replicate on both spin and fly gear. The smallest epoxy jigs, soft plastics, and stickbaits in our arsenal were still astronomically too large to effectively match the hatch. Once again, Alex persevered and hunted down a solution for enticing a bite. He came to the conclusion that the only way to present a bait small enough on spin to replicate the tiny anchovies at hand was to utilize a casting egg. This gives your rig the required weight to bomb long-distance casts into the feeding zone, enabling us to fish much smaller anchovy imitations.
Once we had discovered a way to properly present to the fish on spin, we were off to the races all over again. The good news was that both Ian and Alex had tied loads of anchovy imitations and surf candies, many of which were sized almost appropriately while still tied on tuna-grade hooks. If we could feed the fish using the casting egg, we would be one step closer to presenting a fly.
Equipped with some comically small soft plastic anchovy imitations from the local tackle shop, we prepared to target pelagic hard-tail species on what looked like literal panfish gear. Setting aside everything we knew about big game terminal tackle, we embarked on the next phase of our trip with new wind in our sails.
The Not So Little Tunny
We thought we had seen albies busting a few times over the course of our first week, but never confirmed it. The violence of the offshore feeds made species ID tricky, and although Ian and I were well-versed in dissecting pelagic blitzes, we still wondered at times what we were looking at. Being across the world from our home waters didn’t help with our confidence, not to mention we had read the albies would be 25+ pounds in the Med vs. the 5-10 pound class albies we were used to targeting. Long story short, we were still new kids on the block and hadn’t been able to say for sure if we had cast on any little tunny yet.
On day four, that all changed. While running between our newly discovered numbers, we pulled up to a surface feed that seemed to be sustaining. I was at the helm while Alex and Ian cast from the bow. At this point, the crew and Whaler were a well-oiled machine, and seamlessly alternating casters on the bow had become a reflexive ballet. Once I positioned the boat, Alex catapulted his casting egg with a teeny-tiny soft plastic paddle-tail rigged up and began to burn it in. We watched the bait get blown up once—all screamed like children—and then witnessed a mega-albie come up and crush the paddle-tail again, this time coming tight.
The fish immediately sizzled an unreasonable amount of drag, and then proceeded to dive like a tuna down to 200 feet. Between the blistering runs and insane spiraling antics underneath the boat, this was unlike any albie Ian and I had ever fought and was only the second one Alex had ever hooked. We quickly brought the fish on board and taped him—a staggering 99cm. We didn’t have to run the numbers to know the fish was leagues longer than the standing IGFA length record on fly, 86cm. Once we snapped some quick photos and revived the fish for release, it was finally time to stow away the spinning gear and set up a fly rod.
The Fly Mission
While Alex had been fighting his albie, the initial blitz we had pulled up to had grown into a National Geographic status acres-wide feeding frenzy. The fish were up and angry, the school splitting into different fast-moving groups, each more violent than the next. We had never seen such carnage; the rage-feeds were literally deafeningly loud to the point we had to yell to each other just to be heard over the whitewater.
It was now or never; the three of us looked at one another, our collective gears turning, trying to determine who would be the one to set up a fly rod and cast into the madness. I had maneuvered the boat into the feed to begin with, but obviously, Alex was more proficient on the sticks of his own boat than Ian or me, so it was decided he would be the wheelman. Ian had always been an albie-guru to me back home on the Cape, having taught me tactics for stripping, staying tight, and fighting the fast-moving species, so I suggested he be the one to grab a wand and get on the bow. I decided my role would be to help identify the most targetable feed in real time, to manage the line while Ian focused on balancing and casting, and to assist with comms between the captain and angler.
Targeting false albacore can be maddeningly difficult on fly due to the species’ lightning-fast and picky feeding behavior. Only staying up for a few seconds at a time, Alex was wheeling the 19 Whaler like a maniac in an attempt to get within casting range before the fish were back down. They didn’t seem to be very boat shy (maybe because we were the only boat in sight), but they were still forcing the bait up to the surface and U-turning back down in remarkably fast intervals. We had only a fraction of the casting range on fly as we did hurling the casting egg on spin, so timing and choosing the right group of fish was going to be everything.
We barely managed to yell to each other as Alex incessantly rocketed the boat into the closest available blitz. Without any sort of stripping bucket or pad, I struggled to keep Ian’s fly line neatly stacked and ready to shoot with my hands pinning the line to the bow. With the boat rapidly coming on and off plane and doing relentless donuts, I had just as hard a time holding up and supporting Ian himself. We managed to get Ian positioned for a few decent shots at the fish, but never came tight. With time being of the essence, we panicked to figure out our next move. Comparing the surf candy Ian had rigged up to the soft plastic we had hooked the first albie on, we realized the fly was a size up. Lacking any flies small enough to truly replicate the tiny bait that still had a burly enough hook, we were at a loss. Running out of time and ideas, we decided in a last-ditch effort to simply trim down a surf candy almost to the hook shank.
Once Ian gave his fly a heinous haircut, we got back to business. We soon after pulled up to a promising feed, but it tragically dissipated before he could get a good shot in. With Ian’s fly line between my fingers on one hand and his lower back pressed into my other for support, I noticed a whole bunch of color subsurface right in front of us. I could tell Ian and Alex had already adjusted their eyes up and outward in search of the next blitz, so I screamed to Ian to cast directly in front of the boat—the fish were still there, cleaning up the descending fallout from the last eruption. Ian saw what I saw and immediately got his fly line into the air to prepare to shoot. Before he could load up his final haul, the school of albies suddenly exploded topwater right off the port side of the vessel. With fly line already in the air, Ian pivoted his casting angle leftward without missing a beat and dropped his trimmed-down surf candy. Seamlessly transitioning to a double-handed strip, Bragdon sank into a fish as soon as he connected to the fly, calmly exclaiming, “I’m tight, I’m tight, I’m tight!”
Muscle memory kicked in, and Ian went to work as he’s done so many times before. The fish hit the reel, and we went ballistic—Bragdon’s initially calm and focused demeanor dissolving into our pure collective adrenaline. Just like the first fish, the little tunny went on a searing run, and then sounded down to the depths. Hooked on a 20lb leader and with a 9wt in hand, we were terrified to put too much pressure on the fish—especially considering the meat pile Ian had to strip through in order to come tight; had the leader been nicked on one of the other thousands of ram-feeding fish jostling for position? We knew we couldn’t horse the albie like we had the first one on spin, but at the same time, we couldn’t allow the fish to get juiced back up while holding and resting at depth. This is where Bragdon’s tuna fishing expertise really came into play—he knew just how to battle the albie without overexerting his gear, or underexerting the fish. When I asked Ian what was going through his head while hooked up, he said, “Part of me wanted to obviously protect the IGFA leader, while the tuna fisherman in me wanted to lock the drag and force him into a pin wheel, so we tried to do both. I can still hear the boys yelling at me to not palm the reel! Low angles and keeping the rod maxed out were key in not giving the fish any breaks and getting it to the surface quickly.”.
After a nail-biting fight lasting almost 30 minutes, we finally saw color and confirmed it was a similar size class fish to the first 99 cm specimen we landed. I think it’s safe to say we all blacked out during the endgame, but I do remember Alex extending his massive wingspan over the rail of the Whaler to tail the fish. We held him boatside and shared a powerful moment together—we had done it, we had managed to catch a mega-albie on fly. Albies are notoriously sensitive fish that often bleed and require extra care when handled, so I had prepped the IGFA mat during the fight so we could quickly tape and release the fish. It was time for the moment of truth. Alex laid the meat-missile down while I snapped all of the necessary photos we would need to submit the fish to the IGFA—and viola—he taped a touch over 90cm, a whopping four centimeters longer than the standing record.
We couldn’t clean the boat fast enough after returning to the dock—the ham sammy boys needed to celebrate. Reaching deep into our already ravaged pockets, we sat down at our neighborhood haunt and popped a bottle of champagne…or two. Anyone who’s ever attempted a DIY fishing trip knows that revisiting the day’s events and blathering on about the fishery over drinks is almost as fun as the fishing itself. Feeling an immense amount of stoke and gratitude, we finally got to give ourselves some credit for the whole ridiculous endeavor. Don’t get it twisted, we still don’t claim to know all that much about finding success in the Catalonian fishery; a two-week-long trip is peanuts, so we stayed humble knowing we hadn’t even scratched the surface. That being said, I don’t think there’s any greater high in the fishing world than executing a far-fetched plan with some of your best pals. Nos vemos pronto, España.
This article is written by Flylords contributor Harry Spampinato and features Ian Bragdon and Alex Gurnee. Check them out on Instagram and follow along on their other epic adventures.