Big news circulated around Martha’s Vineyard last night when Sherry Countryman hung a 19.91-pound false albacore from the scales at Dick’s Bait and Tackle and then the Martha’s Vineyard Derby Headquarters. The fish was first established as the new boat category leader of the Derby, and then a quick look at the record books confirmed it as the largest albie ever weighed in Massachusetts.
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The previous record, caught in September 1990 by Don MacGillivray weighed 19.39 pounds and was also a Derby winner for that year. It stood uncontested for 36 years (though it was very nearly beat by Bill Potter in 2023) until Countryman’s outing on September 17.
What’s especially impressive about these two records is that they were caught within the boundaries of the Martha’s Vineyard Derbies. Most Northeast state albie records are bycatch for anglers targeting tuna offshore, but Countryman’s fish was caught inshore on light tackle.
Overall, it’s been a slow start to the Massachusetts albie run, but it seems to be following last year’s pattern of very large albies feeding around Nantucket and the Vineyard, with scattered schools of smaller fish in Buzzards Bay and off the South Side of Cape Cod.
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