St. Marks Cobia Huntin'

[EddieJoe]

Dean and I went cobia hunting off the St. Marks/Mashes Sands area today, with little to show for it. We took his bay boat, as it is on the trailer (mine is in dry storage at Carrabelle), and a beautiful morning greeted us as we headed out the canal. We had dead bait and lots of lures but no livies.

First of all, it was rougher than a cobb, not the 1' that was forecast by our fine NOAA folks. At times in the morning, the seas reached 3-5', maybe higher, although they calmed at noon. We had to pound slowly everywhere we went, and lots of floating grass made us give up on the grouper trolling pretty quick. We stopped at several of the known cobia "hot spots" with no one home, and just managed two legal gags on the bottom. On the way back in, we stopped on Ock. Shoals, where there were plenty of nice sized spanish hitting lures we threw. I was using my salt water casting reel, a Penn Int. 965, and having fun. After boating a few, I was bringing one to the boat when I saw a big shark following the spanish to the boat. I yelled "shark" and then I realized that the "shark" was an enormous cobia, the largest I have ever seen, and it wanted the spanish. Dean started hollering for me not to let the humongous cobia take the spanish, as he had a bigger outfit with a eel lure near ready. We were yelling, the cobia was trying to eat the spanish while I jerked it out of the water and his (her, probably) mouth, and Dean was throwing the lure, finally. The cobia actually hit at the spanish as I held it out of the water - shoulda coulda woulda let the fish take the spanish, but didn't. The fish took the lure when Dean threw, but Dean failed to set the hook, and we couldn't keep the fish at the boat. It was mayhem that yielded nothing but a fish story, eventually.

Anyhow, we made it back to the ramp and the wind was pretty slack, with a beautiful day still going on. Not much catching, but a nice day anyhow.

It makes a good story.

Tally: 2 gags, several spanish, catch all the spanish you want.

Luck,

EJ

[big bend gyrene]

As I started reading the report, thought it was going to lower my cobia fever by a degree... it most DEFINITELY did not... now it's up about 5 degrees to a dayum near fatal level! GREAT report.

Nothing to get the heart rate spiked like the sudden appearance of a surprise monster cobe!

[Jumptrout51]

ANOTHER COBIA HOLE SHOT TO h311.

[woopty]

Seeing lots of them out there.
got this 38"er yesterday on a pin.

[big bend gyrene]

Woopty, seeing as how I've been completely out of commission thus far this year, you REALLY ought to take up tagging any shorts / over limit fish you don't keep!

Don't know if you've read past threads I posted on tagging but all that's required for a tag kit is writing a guy named Read Hendon with the Univ of Miss. If you email him @ read.hendon@usm.edu and give him you're contact info and mailing address, he'll send you a tagging kit for free! And as many as you're snagging tell him that John Kennedy out of the Tallahassee area recommended you get in touch with him and that you could likely use 2 kits, as a single kit only consists of 10 tags, which go quick if you get on some "just short" grouped-up cobes.

Just got 20 tags in the mail this past week myself... now if ONLY I can find a day to get out!!!

[woopty]

Actually I read the tagging thread and Read sent me some tags last year. Tagged just two after I received them.
It totally slipped my mind that I had them this year. Thanks for reminding me BBG, I'll get back on the program.

[Jumptrout51]

I thought cobia was a tag amd eat species.

[woopty]

I thought cobia was a tag amd eat species.

Wow, I did too!

Don't see what the big deal is about tagging them, couldn't taste the tag, it burned off on the grill.

[EddieJoe]

As I started reading the report, thought it was going to lower my cobia fever by a degree... it most DEFINITELY did not... now it's up about 5 degrees to a dayum near fatal level! GREAT report.

Nothing to get the heart rate spiked like the sudden appearance of a surprise monster cobe!

BBG:

To crank you up some more, short report (detailed later) from today:

A 75 pounder (weighed at the Club) came over the rail of my boat today. It took two of us to pull him/her in on the gaff. That fish was huge, but definitely smaller than the submarine that tried to eat the mack last Friday. Took a long time to clean that monster today.

Biggest cobia ever caught in my boat.

EJ

[tallykenj]

Eddiejoe,

Although you didn''t catch the monste,r at least you got a great story. Thanks for sharing it.