Due to solunar forecast and love for May cobia fishing, had been eyeballing the specific day for months. Figured it was going to be a good one, so gave a call to Dolphinatic and told him I was giving him first dibs on a trip out due to fact that after 3 years and numerous invitations we still hadn't fished together. He shocked me by saying he had a solid green light so we met at the house at dark-30 and made the trip down to the coast together, along with Dolphinatic's friend Raymond Sims.
Water conditions were PERFECT so ran WOT to bait grounds. While I fished for bait, Tom (Dolphinatic) and Raymond caught a pretty steady stream of seabass, trout, and mackeral. Bite was so good on the bait grounds we grew increasingly optimistic about our odds offshore. Before I get to the cobes, just have to say we got a kick out of the seabass being so ravenous that Tom doubled on a single cast!
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Pull up to spot 1 in 18' of water and FIRST drop down I have a cobia chase the bait as I put it in the water, and it was BIG... 40 pound range, but despite his bravado in running up to the boat he didn't take. Still, I took the sighting as a good sign. So few minutes later, WHAM... Raymond yells, "Fish on!" and, yep, it's a cobe.
Only negative about spot 1 was that the fish proved small. Still, let us do some scientific work as we tagged 3 cobes within the first hour fishing, with all caught by Raymond! Thinking maybe the spot was a bit too public, we moved out to spot #2 - the farthest spot out we hit. Bite proved steady at spot #2 but this time we were IN the slot. We not only hooked up regularly, but doubled twice. End result was that we tagged 5 during the day, kept 3, lost 2 or 3 more, and saw a handful of following fish we didn't hook, so best guess was that we saw at least 15 cobes.
Now if all that doesn't sound exciting enough, HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY WITHOUT QUESTION was when one of our cobes became bait. This actually happened at spot #3, one we visited running back in from spot #2. We were worried whether spot #3 would produce as it's pretty public, so instead of fishing Tom and Raymond suited up and did some diving to scout. Visibility was so poor near the bottom they gave up after about 15 minutes and got back in. They weren't in the boat 5 minutes before a line out of the back started singing with a cobe that looked to be about 1" short, but a nice fish nonetheless. Raymond was doing the fighting and got it boatside when out of the blue it got hit ON TOP OF THE WATER. He's shouting like crazy, and I look to see what looks like a giant wing flapping down in the water, so I yell "SPOTTED EAGLE RAY?!!!" thinking there's no way it would be harassing a cobe, and Raymond shouts, "NO!!! THAT WAS A GOLIATH GROUPER AND YOU SAW THE TAIL FIN!!! IT JUST TOOK MY COBIA!!!". About a second too late filming, but did capture our reaction a few seconds after the bite, and as the film sadly shows Raymond lost the goliath pretty early into the fight.
Versus sharing single pics, just let the video tell the story of the entire day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWMowCrwi6g[/video]
And can't finish the report without sharing the funniest line of the day... in the midst of the bite being rock solid, Tom stops and says, "Man, this is like a Geico commercial... so easy even a Wolfe-man should be able to do it!"
Honest to goodness, was GREAT to be back on the water and to see Tom and Raymond having a good time. Dolphinatic was so happy with the solid bite he kept us all laughing pretty much the entire time. CAN'T wait to get back on 'em again!
Over and out,
BBG
