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My 11 year-old son & I were out on the St. Marks flats the other day, we were anchored over mixed grass & sand & we started seeing two long brown critters swimming over the sandy bottom. "Sharks" I say, but after a few minutes it became clear to me they weren't really acting like sharks. Especially when they refused a nice hunk of fresh ladyfish. Could they be ....? I happened to catch a pinfish on a Gulp jig I was throwing and put him on a big spinner with a circle hook.

About two minutes later BAM! he's on, he breaches, yep, big brown polliwog, it's a COBIA! After a LONG back & forth standoff trying to get him close enough to the boat to net, we finally go to net him and he tears right through it like it wasn't even there. So my son is holding the rod to my left and I'm holding the net with the line going through the hole in the net. UNGOOD SITUATION. I take the rod & feed it and the reel through the hole in the net and finally ditch the net. NOW WHAT? Tried grabbing is tail, no go. Too slippery, too big. Try to shoot it in the head with my trusty Glock? No way, I'd be sure to hit the line. Try to rope it somehow? Too complicated. I end up leaning down on the gunwale (which is right next to the water because my boat is a 15 foot jonboat and I'm 260+ lbs) and I finally am able to finagle my arm underneath him, trying to find his center of gravity as I do some test-lifts, and when I get the sweet spot I quickly give him a one-armed bear-hug, chesting him, and rolling me and him as a unit backwards and into the boat. Victory! Gorged on him all week. It sure beats having to catch a dozen or two smaller fish to get that much meat. He was about 43 inches from tip of tail to snout. In the photo, he's curved a little. https://imgur.com/IQ72Zpw

(Gotta click on the link to get the pic. I can't figure out how to make the image appear in the post automatically.)

The man in the brown suit! Congrats, a big one like that sure is fun to reel in. Sounds like yours was a challenge!

Ted, any chance you checked to see what was in his belly?

Nice job by the way. I heard that if theyre not worn down, they go even crazier when you get them in the boat.

Nice fish and good job on landing it under the circumstances. Yes, they do go ballistic, often at the boat (or inside). Tasty meat, too. Have gotten reports of more around with the warmer water. They can be a challenging--and maddening--adversary.

FYI, good thing you didn't use your Glock. Prohibited to harvest fish using a firearm.

. Here you go. Congrats.


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So I'm coming down to fish Apalachee Bay in 2 weeks and want to be prepared in case a Cobia shows up. I'm a flyfisher. What do you think, 9 weight or 12 weight rod for Cobia? Those are the 2 choices I have outside of my 8 weights.

Nine weight should be fine. Weight forward floating or slow sink line. 20-pound tippet, 40-pound leader. Big Deceivers, eel patterns or foam poppers should do the trick. You can anchor and chum to draw them into casting range. Staging near a marker or other structure will help. I always used a mix of frozen chum blocks and dry chum. Good luck.

Silverking, I have a few larger Deceivers and a bunch of Poppers, thoughts on the patterns pictured below? I was thinking the Tan one which I tied a bit larger. Thought I'd try the black one for Reds.

PB image isn't shown. Darker is probably better. Olive over pearl is best, like an eel. Black with a hint of red for the gills a close second.

Thanks man!

That’s awesome Ted. I bet that was super fun. Good for you. ( measure to the fork next time, not to the tip of the tail)

I keep a small gaff on the boat starting about March for just the situation you described. I rarely target them but usually catch a few a year.