MATCHED PAIR
It was about 23 years ago that I first heard about the false albacore bite that goes off every fall in the waters around Cape Lookout, North Carolina. I was hanging out at a local fly shop when four or five guys described the hot top-water action, with little tunas smoking off fly line to the backing and hours of bent fly rods. When I finally got around to making a plan and researching online how to make it happen, I kept seeing the names Sarah Gardner and Brian Horsley, a husband-and-wife guide team who work out of Harkers Island, North Carolina, during the fall season. “If you want to catch albies, go see Brian and Sarah,” one old-timer piped in on a fishing forum. I made a couple of phone calls and secured a date to fish with Gardner in October.
As soon as I met her, I could see that she was unlike the grumpy guides I’d fished with out West. As I stepped aboard Fly Girl, her Jones Brothers Marine Cape Fisherman 23, she greeted me with enthusiasm and a grin that stretched across her elegantly weathered face. In the next slip was her husband’s boat, Flat Out, also a Cape Fisherman 23. Horsley, a salty grumbler who is a teddy bear at heart, shook my hand when Gardner introduced us.
Gardner expertly navigated the shallow, winding channel called “The Drain,” which leads to Barden Inlet and an area known as “The Hook.” I knew it was going to be a good day when albies started busting all around us. “This is gonna be epic — I can already tell,” Gardner said.
I got up on the
