How important are coastal fronts to albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga) habitat in the Northeast Pacific Ocean

•We use satellite data to characterize albacore habitat, including front detection.•We use catch per unit effort (CPUE) to characterize albacore distribution.•We model albacore CPUE based on frontal features, SST, chlorophyll and currents.•Spatial distribution of modeled CPUE matched observations, except for extremes.•Albacore CPUE was higher near warm, low chlorophyll waters, and near SST fronts.