Atlantic bonito are more slender, with straight, black lateral lines, dorsal fins extending almost the length of their backs, and small teeth. Unlike false albacore (below), bonito are excellent to eat, but both species will make a reel spin at warp speed.

It’s not all just a size thing. The relative scarcity of certain species makes them more prized than others by sportsmen. Because Atlantic bonito (Sarda sarda) fight as hard and yet are so much rarer and better eating than false albacore (Euthyness alleteratus), anglers who luck into one feel like prizewinners.

In most places, these fish make such ephemeral appearances compared to albies that, once finally in hand, you stare at this tiny tuna like an emerald amid a pile of glass. I’ve watched a few lucky anglers catch them during the dozen or so trips I’ve made to the Northeast. And during those trips I had high hopes that, between tussles with albies and striped bass, that I, too, would add an Atlantic bonito to my angling life list.

No such luck.

And I could have saved myself a lot of time and expense if I had known about the run that occurs predictably off southern North Carolina each spring.

“You’ll catch all you want,” said old surfing compadre, Capt. Fisher Culbreth.

“Real bonitos?”

“Yes.”

“Atlantic bonitos.”

“ Sarda sarda, the ones you can eat,” he said.

Normally, I flinch when guides talk about “guaranteed fish,” especially when dealing with highly migratory species. But Fisher had established a unique cachet with me, since he put me on fish a few years ago in the midst of a tropical storm.

The Run Scientists don’t know much about Sarda sarda in terms of species migration patterns. Atlantic bonito seem to occur in many temperate climes throughout the Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. Like every other highly migratory fish, they follow their favorite prey, namely glass minnows or silversides. Each year, about the second week of April, water temps climb into the 60s off of southern North Carolina, and the tiny baitfish appear by the millions, followed closely by tuna. The bonito run can last into the second week of May, and coincide with a run of unusually large Spanish mackerel. That having been said, Mother Ocean is fickle. Fortunately, the area also offers superb fishing for redfish during those same months, should the bonito fail to show or should it blow. — T.G.

The second week of April, ole “Catfish” Culbreth took John Andrews and me out Mason Inlet at dawn. The south-facing beaches and long continental shelf off of southern North Carolina create a wide, often wind-protected, shallow-ocean fishery that is accessible with small boats. Fisher routinely takes his bay boat as far as 20 miles off the beach in search of gamefish such as cobia, false albacore and Atlantic bonitos, and the first morning was so flat I would have agreed to try and make Europe.

The warm spring air was heavy with fish oil, the ocean was slick calm and glass minnows showered the surface as the bow parted the sea. Expectant, we stopped just outside the inlet to watch for blitzes, but there was no action whatsoever. The water temp gauge read 58 degrees, about two degrees too cold.

“It’s still a little chilly, and they’ve been dredging,” Fisher said, pointing to the silty water and a beach the Army Corps of Engineers had recently covered in black mud. So he ran us off the beach a ways, hoping to find a warm eddy off the Gulf Stream.

He stopped us over a 38-foot-deep wreck, which was also quiet save a couple of “snapper” bluefish frenzies.

Fisher pointed the bow east again and ran us out to an artificial reef in 50 feet of water. Looking at the fishfinder, that wreck seemed about as busy as a tomb.

False albacore are football shaped, have no teeth, sport squiggly lateral markings, and a shark-like, tall dorsal fin.

As we ran out to a 70-foot wreck, Fisher said, “Watch for albie blitzes.” We found sporadic pods of albies, and caught a few big ones on tiny white marabou streamers. Both albies (“little tunny” is the official name) and Atlantic bonito are “coastal pelagic species,” meaning that they spend most of their life histories inside the boundaries of the continental shelf. But albies will migrate far offshore, while Atlantic bonito are much more “coastal” than “pelagic.” Knowing this, we ran back toward shallower structure.

On the way, Fisher explained that bonito usually only feed on the surface in low-light conditions. The sun was already high, so he put out squid spoons 40 feet behind a No. 1 planer. We trolled throughout the day, waiting for low light again, and hooked nothing but bluefish except for one early season smoker king mackerel, which broke the line around a buoy. We got home well after dark.