Cobia Woes!
Posted: April 28th, 2008, 10:59 am
Hello all,
Long time reader first time poster here. I was wondering if any of the cobia catchin pros is able to give me a hand in where my buddy and I might have went wrong with our fishing techniques? 2 weekends in a row we have went out to this structure that we know and have seen large cobia cruising around it and have not been able to boat any of them. Last weekend we only had one, but this past weekend they were stacked up. We counted 6 that we know of and one of them was a monster. By far the largest Cobia I have ever seen in person. Here is what we tried:
First we anchored above current to the structure far enough out that we could cast just past it. Then we started with live pin fish. Free lining one out and then putting one on a sinker and putting him on the bottom. Then after we figured they were not interested in the pin fish we started casting different colored bucktail jig (White, Chartreuse and white, black and orange, and just Chartreuse). While leaving a pin fish free lined. We tried adding Berkley eels and different colored Berkley shrimp to the bucktail jigs as well. We tried multiple different line sizes and retrieve methods. We tried pitching away from the fish and away from the structure. We also tried timing it so we could drop the bait in front of them (far enough away to not scare them! However they were not scared of anything it seemed) and then pulling it away from the fish. We put live pin fish under a cork and let it float back to the fish. We kept switch out the pin fish to make sure they were plenty lively enough for them to attack. The only thing we did not was live eels (which we did not have). This went on for about 2 to 2.5 hours. We finally got tired of throwing stuff at them we just left and went in to shore to catch some trout and Spanish. Pretty aggravating!
We did get the Cobia to respond by chasing and checking the different things out but they never bit. So any helpful tips would be wonderful. I have read everything I can about catching Cobia and I it seems like we did most of the things I have read for the most part. We have only caught a couple of Cobia ever. However they are great fish to eat and a whole lot of fun to catch (except for the past 2 weekends). We decided to learn and target them more this year. So any help or tips would greatly be appreciated.
-B
Long time reader first time poster here. I was wondering if any of the cobia catchin pros is able to give me a hand in where my buddy and I might have went wrong with our fishing techniques? 2 weekends in a row we have went out to this structure that we know and have seen large cobia cruising around it and have not been able to boat any of them. Last weekend we only had one, but this past weekend they were stacked up. We counted 6 that we know of and one of them was a monster. By far the largest Cobia I have ever seen in person. Here is what we tried:
First we anchored above current to the structure far enough out that we could cast just past it. Then we started with live pin fish. Free lining one out and then putting one on a sinker and putting him on the bottom. Then after we figured they were not interested in the pin fish we started casting different colored bucktail jig (White, Chartreuse and white, black and orange, and just Chartreuse). While leaving a pin fish free lined. We tried adding Berkley eels and different colored Berkley shrimp to the bucktail jigs as well. We tried multiple different line sizes and retrieve methods. We tried pitching away from the fish and away from the structure. We also tried timing it so we could drop the bait in front of them (far enough away to not scare them! However they were not scared of anything it seemed) and then pulling it away from the fish. We put live pin fish under a cork and let it float back to the fish. We kept switch out the pin fish to make sure they were plenty lively enough for them to attack. The only thing we did not was live eels (which we did not have). This went on for about 2 to 2.5 hours. We finally got tired of throwing stuff at them we just left and went in to shore to catch some trout and Spanish. Pretty aggravating!
We did get the Cobia to respond by chasing and checking the different things out but they never bit. So any helpful tips would be wonderful. I have read everything I can about catching Cobia and I it seems like we did most of the things I have read for the most part. We have only caught a couple of Cobia ever. However they are great fish to eat and a whole lot of fun to catch (except for the past 2 weekends). We decided to learn and target them more this year. So any help or tips would greatly be appreciated.
-B
heh heh!! Check it out and let me know!
I'm telling you, I've never had that fail when I know there were cobia around the boat. You pull on the line with a sharp tug and those critter go to croaking and its bang time.