St. Marks Lighthouse 5/30/2007 - Cobia are in close!
Posted: May 31st, 2007, 12:34 pm
So I took Tuesday and Wednesday off work after the holiday weekend because I was supposed to head down south to pick up a new boat, but due to a bank error, my checking account was frozen and thus I could not access the cash to pay for said boat (Thanks FSU Credit Union!). After my marathon paddling day Tuesday yielded lots of very nice reds, and all the frustration dealing with the bank (they did fix the problem, but not early enough for me to make it to Bradenton and back at a decent hour), I decided to head out fishing in my trusty canoe again Wednesday.
I decided to try heading out from the lighthouse in pursuit of the elusive cobia. I've never caught one in the Gulf (and I've been fishing here 1-3 days a week for about 5 years!), and they've been taunting me lately by swimming circles around the boat, and even taking my bait/lure and then ultimately my line three times in the past week
Well the lighthouse was mistake number 1; winds were about 15 knots. I paddled harder than I ever have in my life and covered a total of maybe a mile back and forth. I couldn't get anywhere near a spot I marked that was holding a bunch of nice trout and where I lost a CT to cobia hookup this past Friday. The only good news is that I got a lot of practice tacking into the wind, so if I'm still able to go down and get this sailboat I was supposed to pick up, it won't take me so long to get used to!
I got a few trout (all 17-20"), overall a very poor fishing day for me, but here's why I posted this report anyway -- I had confirmed cobia sightings both near the end of the jettie by the lighthouse boat ramp, and near the Gulf side of the long oyster bar immediately SSE of the lighthouse (the one with the four pylons stuck in it). I would estimate both were somewhere between 3 and 4 feet size. I had a third sighting, also along the edge of the same oyster bar, but I'm not 100% sure whether it was a cobia or one of those sharks that looks sorta like a cobia. It was running up kind of on top the bar very aggressively from perpindicular when the water was about 2.5-3 feet deep like I've seen sharks do many many times, and I don't know if cobia would normally do that type of thing or not. Probably a shark, but did have a smallish looking dorsal for a shark and a kind of split near the top of the tail, so who knows...
I accidentlaly left the digi cam at home sitting at my PC after downloading Tuesday's redfish pics. I bought a cheapie disposable on the way and got some pics, but haven't had them developed yet and they're nothing exciting. Didn't photograph the cobia at all cause I was too busy slinging jigs and lures at them and neither of them stuck around long.
At any rate, just wanted to let everyone know I saw some big cobia within 100 yards from shore around the lighthouse, so GO GET 'EM!
Oh and if anyone cares, I caught all the trout just to the west side of the boat ramp 'channel' in the shallower water around low tide on Gulp! 4" grass shrimp with red 1/4 oz Gotcha jig heads under a barrel cajun thunder. I went through several of the small Gulp! rootbeer swimming mullet (I think they're 3") earlier in the day, but the tails kept getting bitten off by fish probably too small to bite the hook, so I got annoyed and switched to the shrimp. I've recently become a topwater addict thanks to Mojokoko, but the wind and resulting chop made my favorite zara spooks impossible, and all my floating/diving twitchbaits (MirroLure, Bite-A-Bait etc) got fouled from all the grass within a foot or two of hitting the water, so I had to rule them out as well. I'm generally not a fan of the gulp/CT combo but that was the only thing I had on me for those water conditions, and although I only got the few hookups, I was getting bites consistently for most of the afternoon. I think it was mostly from pinfish and ladyfish though by the way the CT would completely dissapear in a flash, then pop back up a second later only to reel in a tail-less Gulp.
I decided to try heading out from the lighthouse in pursuit of the elusive cobia. I've never caught one in the Gulf (and I've been fishing here 1-3 days a week for about 5 years!), and they've been taunting me lately by swimming circles around the boat, and even taking my bait/lure and then ultimately my line three times in the past week
Well the lighthouse was mistake number 1; winds were about 15 knots. I paddled harder than I ever have in my life and covered a total of maybe a mile back and forth. I couldn't get anywhere near a spot I marked that was holding a bunch of nice trout and where I lost a CT to cobia hookup this past Friday. The only good news is that I got a lot of practice tacking into the wind, so if I'm still able to go down and get this sailboat I was supposed to pick up, it won't take me so long to get used to!
I got a few trout (all 17-20"), overall a very poor fishing day for me, but here's why I posted this report anyway -- I had confirmed cobia sightings both near the end of the jettie by the lighthouse boat ramp, and near the Gulf side of the long oyster bar immediately SSE of the lighthouse (the one with the four pylons stuck in it). I would estimate both were somewhere between 3 and 4 feet size. I had a third sighting, also along the edge of the same oyster bar, but I'm not 100% sure whether it was a cobia or one of those sharks that looks sorta like a cobia. It was running up kind of on top the bar very aggressively from perpindicular when the water was about 2.5-3 feet deep like I've seen sharks do many many times, and I don't know if cobia would normally do that type of thing or not. Probably a shark, but did have a smallish looking dorsal for a shark and a kind of split near the top of the tail, so who knows...
I accidentlaly left the digi cam at home sitting at my PC after downloading Tuesday's redfish pics. I bought a cheapie disposable on the way and got some pics, but haven't had them developed yet and they're nothing exciting. Didn't photograph the cobia at all cause I was too busy slinging jigs and lures at them and neither of them stuck around long.
At any rate, just wanted to let everyone know I saw some big cobia within 100 yards from shore around the lighthouse, so GO GET 'EM!
Oh and if anyone cares, I caught all the trout just to the west side of the boat ramp 'channel' in the shallower water around low tide on Gulp! 4" grass shrimp with red 1/4 oz Gotcha jig heads under a barrel cajun thunder. I went through several of the small Gulp! rootbeer swimming mullet (I think they're 3") earlier in the day, but the tails kept getting bitten off by fish probably too small to bite the hook, so I got annoyed and switched to the shrimp. I've recently become a topwater addict thanks to Mojokoko, but the wind and resulting chop made my favorite zara spooks impossible, and all my floating/diving twitchbaits (MirroLure, Bite-A-Bait etc) got fouled from all the grass within a foot or two of hitting the water, so I had to rule them out as well. I'm generally not a fan of the gulp/CT combo but that was the only thing I had on me for those water conditions, and although I only got the few hookups, I was getting bites consistently for most of the afternoon. I think it was mostly from pinfish and ladyfish though by the way the CT would completely dissapear in a flash, then pop back up a second later only to reel in a tail-less Gulp.
