Cobia at St marks

[Redbelly]

Out of St Marks which way is a good direction to find the Cobia? Instead of 1 lb flie brim at Miccosuk, I'm going out to catch the beast.

Any help appreciated, not exact spots just general areas.

[kneeknocker]

South from the bouys to 35ft. Check the bouys and then find some rocks and chum with baits on the bottom and midway down.

[Redbelly]

Thanks. We may have to try the visable structure, this boat has no bottom finder. I guess we'll float the pins along for awhile.

[iamhybris]

Give it a shot to float pins under the corks and either drift or anchor up and chum. Both ways, since you can't find the bottom relief, fish as many rods as you can handle. I would chum with chunks and be prepared for alot of sharks and spanish mackeral. I would recommend heading to area just south-southeast of the birdrack sandbar and use a sinker on a rod to test the depth and make sure you have about 10+ feet of water, I don't think you will stand much of a chance shallower than that.

[Redbelly]

We did get the bottom finder to work, tried some buoys, but didn't have any chum. We'll try the chum method next trip.
How long will the Cobes stay in this area?

[big bend gyrene]

We did get the bottom finder to work, tried some buoys, but didn't have any chum. We'll try the chum method next trip.
How long will the Cobes stay in this area?

Redbelly, caught one each trip out last year from late April until early October. They're here all summer long and a decent population stays around through early fall. Have gotten into biggest numbers during the late May/early June timeframe and then mid-September time frame. Think that's due to the extra fish being in the area migrating, whereas during middle summer more a group of resident fish that you'll be targeting (though even then they jet around from structure to structure).

Have actually caught cobes last 12 of 14 trips and didn't use chum for 3/4 of those we've caught. Just floated pins around structure. Actually prefer not using chum to avoid other more toothy catches (sharks, mackeral, etc...). Do recommend fishing bottom, middle and top of the water column as you'll have fish cruising through each zone. Best guess at my hookup ratio has been about 60% bottom, 30% near top of column, and about 10% in middle.

Only other thing I can think to add is that targeting them is a real patience game. We sometimes sit on one single piece of structure over half the day, and may not spot a single cobe for 4 hours only to have a formation of 4 or 5 fish fly by just as we're debating heading to the hill.

[SHOWBOAT]

good info BBG. Katie and I tried Saturday morning. Put about 3 dozen pins and couple grunts in the well then headed to strucuture in 25'. I had a float, freeliner and 1/2oz Carolina rig. I thought the freeliner was my best bet so that was the heaviest rod. After about 30 minutes the bottom rig had a blistering run. That rig was on a combo I bought at the RTSO auction, a4000 stradic and MH GL3. I tightened the drag more than I wanted to and katie got the boat headed towards the fish. I finally stopped the fish without about 4 wraps of 15# pp still wrapped around the mono backing. I managed to get him close to the boat twice more and each time he would run to within 50' of spooling me, then he would lay below the surfcae. After the third run the PP gave up. Wish he had hit a larger rig. While I knew it was possible, I was hoping if a fish hit the bottom rig it wouldn't have been the stud this fish was. We had a blast. Tried to stop the birdrack and let Boo swim before we headed in, but jellies were everywhere and nobody was swimming. Boo was already trying to bite the jellies from the bow, so we took it to the house. I hope to try again soon, but it won't be next weekend with the BBSWC pending.