We agreed to meet early Saturday morning to take a trip out of the Econfina area. We spent the first hour or so filling the live-well with pinfish and then turned our attention to Cobia. Based on the level of BBF reports referencing cobe catches, we suspected the bite would be on and were happy to discover that it indeed was. We had multiple bombers cruise by the boat, both at midshore and shallow depths.
Sharkman was first up to bat, with a nice 18 pounder...
I got lucky with the next catch - a 20 pounder that gave me one heck of a fight, once he got close to the boat and figured he was actually hooked
Caught one more cobe before noon...
Before calling it a day, Sharkman and I decided to give the reds a quick try. Can't say we tore them up, but we did manage to both bring a red to the boat
Believe we could have caught a few more, but after spending about 20 minutes slowly drifting/poling towards our target bar from about 1/4 mile out, we had another boat motor straight into our target bar (motor running almost WOT until inches from the bar), with us left speechless only about 200 feet away (reminded me why I MUCH prefer weekday fishing when I get the opportunity). Can't say that I was too sorry the other boat didn't catch anything, and am happy to report that we still caught one red after the company left and we resumed our slow approach. I caught a single red on spoon. Sharkman actually caught the red in the photo via topwater plug on an aggressive midday topwater hit! Sure love the dark bronze color the dirty water gives the Econ reds!
Have had many days out that we've caught more fish, but Sharkman and I both agreed at day's end that we greatly enjoyed catching and seeing quality fish. Also happy to report that we saw about 3x more cobia cruising the flats than we hooked. The local population sure appears to be healthy
Couldn't justify keeping any of the fish this trip out with a freezer full of fish needing to be cooked, so all fish were released unharmed. Did have one cobe break off in the flats and wasn't happy at having to watch him swim off with two cobia buddies, with him (or her?) trailing a bright orange cajun thunder. Luckily, after about 30 seconds of swimming near the boat with the CT a few feet underwater... UP comes the CT (leader and hook included) with a successful retrieve quickly made.Fun trip out... can't wait for the next one!
BBG
