Wednesday rolls around and concentration becomes impossible. Every time you close your eyes you see them: silver and blue monochrome bullets, slashing up schools of peanut bunker the size of a baseball diamond.

Thursday comes and anticipation is palpable. You scroll through the Red Sox scores and local stories and see them — one caught off of Great Point in Nantucket, one caught off Point Judith, a school found in Buzzards Bay. They are here.

Friday comes and the minutes tick by slowly. You battle traffic and maniacally run toward the ferry, determined not to be marooned on land and miss the sunrise bite. Once on the Island, you lie in bed sleepless, thinking about what you can do to get one of these indescribably beautiful bursts of speed and muscle onto the beach.

It’s albie season.

Every August, the New England fly angler is condemned to a quiet period. In June and July, shallow-water flats house schools of healthy fish happily feeding sand eels, crabs and other plentiful bait, placing them in the ideal position for a flyfisherman to throw a cast, entice and land the fish of the summer. In August hot, deadly water and packs of visiting beachgoers push the fish into the deeper, cooler, vacant water and what was once an arena of sport and vibrant excitement becomes an empty sand bar.

True, the bonito generally arrive in late July, offering the patient angler a handful of shots at landing a unicorn. The open water bluefish is also generally game for a tussle. But mostly, inshore trophy fly fishing is halted and fisherman wait for the arrival of Euthynnus alletteratus (false albacore). Undoubtedly this quiet period — this is, after all why we withstand the snow and darkness, to catch 30-inch stripers in 80-degree heat, isn’t it? — adds to the sheer anticipation and excitement that typifies albie season.

When they do finally arrive and reports begin to trickle in from down the Eastern Seaboard, albies are all you can think about. Right place, right time stories begin to fill the air. You hear of fish pushing through schools of peanut bunker like bulldozers moving light gravel and of shore-borne anglers sprinting down the beach to get a cast into the frothing pile of blood, tunoids and severed baitfish.

My two companions Max and Eric and I drove to the Lobsterville jetty, departing at 4:30 a.m., determined not to miss the dawn. There was dense fog. As we turned the corner into the parking lot, we spooked a small four-point buck that leapt gracefully over the beach grass into the woods. Aided by headlamps, we assembled our rods and selected our flies. I chose the always faithful EZ body sand eel. Blowing into my hands to bring dexterity in the crisp, fall morning, I made six careful wraps, tightened and tested my knot, and hooked it to the inside of one of my guides. Our sweatshirts and wool hats damp from the fog, we climbed the gently sloping dune that led to the jetty and clambered onto the rocks ahead of us, headlamps trained downward so as not to ruin the day due to a slippery misstep. We took our respective spots on the rocks and waited in darkness for the sun to rise.

Rise it did, red, orange and triumphant, illuminating the fog with a surreal glow. As light began to fill around the corners of the beach, we began to cast. Systematic and deliberate: two casts into the channel, one to the outside. Soon laughing gulls and terns began to dive, bob and headfake. Behind the jetty, beach plums glistened in the morning dew. Pods of sand eels swept out of Menemsha Pond by the early morning outgoing tide cowered beside the rocks, wary of what lay in deeper water. We continued to cast — two in, one out — and scanned the horizon, looking for the telltale slashes on the surface that signaled the albies.

“Aren’t these fish supposed to show at dawn?” Eric said. “We’ve been here 20 minutes, relax,” returned Max. As I turned away and toward the outside of the jetty to make my switch, the pod of sand eels exploded with tinges of blue-green flash below the boiling whitewater. Mid-cast, I released my coiled fly line and yelled “Albies!”, shoving my rod under my armpit and two-handed stripping my line as fast as humanly possible to get the bait into the washing machine frenzy below me. Eric made a hail Mary cast from 20 yards away and landed seven feet in front of the pile. I loaded and fired my line again, frantically stripping when I heard the unmistakable scream of line flying off the reel behind me.

I swung my head around to see Eric, who had a fish on, his rod and knees bent and hanging on for dear life as the fish made its hard initial run. After making it 10 or so feet into his backing, Eric gained line on the fish. The swirling white water had disappeared, so I clambered down to be in position to help Eric with his fish. As he got it close to the rocks, I heard the machine-gun sound of bait being sprayed out of the water and turned around again to see Max heaving a cast in the pile, feverishly two-handing his fly toward the rocks. Too far into the rocks, I groaned, cursed my bad luck and turned back to the task at hand. After a few frantic runs toward and away from the rocks, I was able to wrap my hand around a bony tail, and we both cheered in delight as I hoisted the fish from the water. I handed the fish to Eric and we marveled for a moment at its swirling black stripes contrasted on a vibrant, reflective, blue body. Eric smiled and I took a quick picture before releasing the fish back into the water.

“Nice peanut” said Max. He had hooked and lost a fish inside the channel during the turmoil. Eric grinned. We returned to our posts and began casting.

One characteristic feature of a school of feeding albies is their predictability. The Menemsha channel abuts an area known as the Lobsterville bowl. The land curves inward from the far point of the bowl known as Dogfish Bar toward the point delineated by the Lobsterville jetty, creating a bowl-shaped harbor — the Menemsha bight. When the albies feed, they follow the contour of the bowl, chasing bait down the shore along its length, making concentric lines toward the shore, intermittently pushing bait toward the surface and breaking the water (a situation known as the pile), letting anxious fishermen periodically know where they are. The fish then force bait against the outside edge of the jetty, push around the point and into the channel. This means you can literally chase the fish down the beach, running to catch up with the pile, or you can wait on the jetty and let the fish come to you. The anticipation is palpable.

We sat on the jetty waiting for the tide to turn. A triggerfish slowly worked the rocks, looking for scraps left behind by the voracious feed. The action on the water had died and we were taking a break. The fog had burned off and the glassy blue water was bathed in warm September sun. I was talking to Eric about his earlier fish when something broke. The water was unbroken from the channel to Dogfish Bar when deep in the bowl, they boiled. I began casting. Eric and Max ribbed me; there had been no action for hours. As the boil came closer, it became apparent that it was only one fish. I blind cast with no real hope of hooking up, just practicing my cast. The fish moved closer, the ribbing grew louder. Suddenly, with the fish nowhere in sight, my line tightened.

The fish took off and line ripped off the reel, singing as I held it high and away from my body to make sure that no errant loops ended the fight prematurely. Eric and Max jumped up and began stumbling over the rocks to get to me, laughing, still in disbelief. After making a beeline for the Elizabeth islands, the fish turned and began to run back — a telltale albie sign. I frantically reeled. When I was almost to my leader knot, the fish made another run, this time parallel to the jetty, whistling coils of line off the spool until the bright orange backing showed. For the next 15 minutes, it was a delicate game of tug of war. I grappled, applying enough pressure to bring the fish in without parting the gentle 10-pound leader that connected me with my first shore-caught albie.

On the rocks, anything can (and will) go wrong, Line coils and gets caught, fish find holes in the jetty and the mere touch of a razor-sharp barnacle on a taut leader can be enough to create months of bad dreams. I worked my fish to the point of the jetty and Eric descended the rocks, beginning the careful dance that involved getting his hand around the bony tail without touching the leader and facilitating a break. Twice I worked the fish close and it made last ditch runs to try and avoid the grabbing hands. On the third run, amid a mix of prayers and profanities, Eric wrapped his fingers around the tail and hoisted the fish up.

I yelled approval and promised Eric that more than a few beers were headed his way later that night. I laid the rod on the rocks, received the handoff from Eric and posed for a quick photo. The fish was in the 10-pound class range. Symmetrical and beautiful, its ovular body shone in the Menemsha. I marveled at how taut and muscular it was. The telltale swirls on its back glinted as I moved the fish back and forth in the water, reviving it to ensure a safe swim back to the shallows. With a few resolute strokes of its tail, the fish was off into the slack tide.

Finally on the board, I thought to myself. A smile engulfing my face, I returned to my rock, emptied line from my rod and continued the rhythmic repetition of the crisp fall morning.

Two casts in, one cast out.

Tony Frascotti grew up in Katama and lives in New York city.