With a college friend living in Pennsylvania coming down to visit next week, thought I best do a functions check on the boat in case he wants to fish and use the brief trip out to scout three or four favorite cobia honey holes. After sitting on land for six months, the boat was so neglected I only got two hours sleep after prepping for the trip out.
With the lone exception of my fish finder needing fuse contact points cleaned before running well, engine ran great so for that I was happy.
Had best fishing bud, Sharkman, along as he had actually helped spur the trip on by telling me he had a big upcoming business deal that was going to keep him off the water for the coming month.So here's the brief fishing report. Not much luck catching pins inshore around the Aucilla area, but while trying for pins DID pull a really nice trout to the boat while fishing waters about 6' deep. Thankfully did find bait offshore, both with grunts on bottom and schools of smaller bait fish on top. Wish I could say the cobia action was insane but it wasn't. We didn't spot a single one at most of our prime spots and had almost given up on the last spot when Sharkman spotted several cruising by just out of ideal casting range. Took a number of casts but he did manage to get one to chase an eel jig he had on. For its size it gave an awesome fight. Was almost certain it was a keeper and technically I ended up being right. Was about 33.1' at the fork. With reports of THE MAN being tough on checks of late we didn't want to risk being checked with a fish that had shrunk on ice, so we tagged the keeper fish and released him. Don't do that too often because know that they aren't likely to show as much growth before being recaptured versus a smaller tagged one that should legally be released if quickly re-captured.
Nice. If you put seawater in the cooler up to a couple inches from the top of the ice. Your fish will not shrink and look fresh caught at the end of the day. With bright red gills. 
BRRRRRR