cobia off the lighthouse

[ertauber]

Planning to fish for cobia this next weekend and am looking for suggestions, tips, tackle tips, etc. I have heard the Birdcage is a good place to try but have never been out there. Have had very good success off of Mash Island this week for trout. Seems they are everywhere on live shrimp,Gulp or Mirrolure suspended bait.
Thanking all in advance for any help.

[bman]

Curious to hear what others say-
We are at the start of the season. the bird rack and buoys can be good.

[silverking]

Might be a tad early for our stretch but they're off the Panhandle beaches so you never know, especially with the temps expected in the upper 80s all week.

The bird rack can hold some big ones, usually early before the boat traffic gets heavy. Any marker, buoy or even a crab trap float can hold ling. The artificial reefs in the bay are more good attractors.

I liked to keep a rod rigged (see my post on the Shimano 5000 combo for sale) with a 1/2- to 3/4-ounce Al Gag's Whip-It Eel (six inch). The natural olive back/pearl belly is my favorite, but I've also had good luck with the candy apple red and lime green ones too. Ease up to structure--I like to drift--and look. Often they will be circling on the surface or laying off the down-tide side. But just because you don't see any doesn't mean nobody is home. Fan cast around the structure letting the eel go to the bottom and work it back in short jerks. If you feel a solid thump, hang on. And if you do hook up, be prepared for one or more buddies to follow the hooked one to the surface.

The other method that I've found successful is to anchor around likely structure in depths of 10 feet-plus and chum. The White Marsh pellets and blocks of frozen chum soaked off the stern is a good combo. The last half of the incoming and first of the outgoing tides has worked the best for me. When the fish show up you can sight-cast to them, which is a blast. On my best day off one of the reefs we had shots at 21 fish in 3 hours, hooking and landing several on the eels.

They will venture into shallow water also. I've caught legal fish in less than four feet on the flats and guys who drift a live pinfish behind the boat will hook 'em fairly regularly as well. More of a happenstance than sure thing, though, which is why it pays to have a cobia rig always within reach.

If you prefer live bait, pinfish, small mullet and hardhead catfish and blue crabs will work too. But eels are one of their favorite foods and the lures are a lot easier to store and fish. Be aware though, that sometimes they will eat anything and other times they'll swim up and nudge a live bait with their nose without swallowing. When that happens they've got nookie on their minds and it's hard to change it.

There are some other cobia fanatics on here and hopefully Big Bend Gyrene and Woopty will chime in with their tricks. But this is what worked for me when I was running charters.

Good luck and post up your results. Cobia, ling, lemon fish, crab crunchers--whatever you want to call them, they are truly a great game fish!

[woopty]

What silverking said...

I will add that when we fish over structure, we hang a pinfish 6 to 10ft directly under the boat with a carolina rig with enough weight to keep it there in the current. Cobia are curious creatures and they will come check you out, so making noise is a good thing. If one shows up near the boat, 9 times out of 10 he'll hit that rod about 5 minutes after being spotted.

And as silverking says, especially early in the season, prepare for trailers. The big one usually is a trailer.

It's an awesome fishery thats fixin to explode any day now.

woop

[homboyfsu]

Which lighthouse?

[RedMann]

I believe when folks around here talk about "the lighthouse", they mean the one at St. Marks. Somewhat off topic but how many lighthouses do we have around here? There's the one on St. George that was moved from Little St. George and the one at Port St. Joe that they moved from the Cape. And another in Carrabelle, right? Any others?

[woopty]

That's all the ones I know of.

I miss having the real St Marks light house when it fired up with a real light. You could see it for miles.

I've had a couple "situations", before the gps era, when that light was damn near the most beautiful thing I'd seen in my life!
I'm sure there are a few on this list that have been there, done that.

woop

[lordsfisher]

Great thread. Thanks for sharing your experience Silverking & Whoopty. I never saw the light in the lighthouse when it was on, but wish they would fire it up again. I'm wondering how plentiful the cobia are inshore. Have you caught more than two in one day?

[woopty]

There will be herds of them hitting the area shortly.
It's not uncommon to hook into a dozen when we target them.

[grouperfever]

In addition to what silverking mentioned above, any more suggestions for chum that works with cobia?

[silverking]

Since it was dry, vacuum-bagged and lasted quite awhile, I'd usually carry two one-pound bags of the White Marsh chum pellets. It's made with ground menhaden. Bass Pro carries it, as does Shields Marina.

I'd also normally carry three five-pound blocks of frozen chum and would go through all three in a couple hours, along with the dry. It is messy (thank goodness for wash down pumps!), but using the disposable chum bags makes it a little easier to deal with. Shake both bags often to get/keep a good slick going. If the bait starts showing up thick (ballyhoo, remora and little jacks), that's a great sign you're doing things right.

You can make your own chum with menhaden oil, fish carcasses, oatmeal, cheap canned mackerel, etc. Frozen will last much longer, though, and is less of a hassle than homemade.

[fishdux]

We caught the first one of the season last weekend on the East flats. A l;ittle guy but I'm sure some bigger ones are here.

[Redbelly]

Would the same rod and reel size work for Tarpon and Cobia alike?

[FishWithChris]

RB, great question...

But let me ask you this, how sporty do you want to fish it? Both fish are fought differently, but both can be fought with the same equipment. I've cast at a few dozen tarpon up here and only jumped a couple and had a decent fight with one.

Cobia, however... different story.

a couple stories from the last year (though not all of them):

Jeff (rainman) fought a solid 70-80lb tarpon using a 4000 Stradic with either 15-20lb braid and maybe 18" of fluoro (either 20 or 30lb). He fought that thing with absolute precision for almost two hours and finally lost it due to wear on the line and a solid aerial show at the last inch of light... I was an inch from leader touch to officially qualify it as a catch ... we were in 4' of water and we were not targeting them

I had a solid cobia that I tossed at with 15-20lb PP and 20 or 25 FC... 1/8oz jig head and 5.5 fluke. I fought that thing with the utmost expertise and eventually lost it due to some rookie attempts at a gaff shot (JIIIMMMMYYYYYYYY!!!!! HAHAHA) we were in 4-6' of water and we were not targeting them

What I'm getting at is that you can fight most fish using almost any setup, but whether you want to be sporty and underpowered, perfectly matched, or absolutely overpowered (yawnnnn) is up to you. And be careful searching the web for "tips" from various forums, bc chances are, you'll be told to tow your 36' Super-Cat with your Toyota Rav4 and head out there with 18000 Saragosas with the most expensive rod you can buy and spooled with line for catching BFT.

A nice MH to H rod 7-8' range and a 5-8000 series reel will have you setup for success in the Big Bend. Spool it with 30-40lb braid and (pending the species) a few feet of 40-80lb FC (and if you're throwing artificials or soaking live bait) with some solid knots and you'll be good to go.

[EddieJoe]

RB, great question...

But let me ask you this, how sporty do you want to fish it? Both fish are fought differently, but both can be fought with the same equipment. I've cast at a few dozen tarpon up here and only jumped a couple and had a decent fight with one.

Cobia, however... different story.

a couple stories from the last year (though not all of them):

Jeff (rainman) fought a solid 70-80lb tarpon using a 4000 Stradic with either 15-20lb braid and maybe 18" of fluoro (either 20 or 30lb). He fought that thing with absolute precision for almost two hours and finally lost it due to wear on the line and a solid aerial show at the last inch of light... I was an inch from leader touch to officially qualify it as a catch ... we were in 4' of water and we were not targeting them

I had a solid cobia that I tossed at with 15-20lb PP and 20 or 25 FC... 1/8oz jig head and 5.5 fluke. I fought that thing with the utmost expertise and eventually lost it due to some rookie attempts at a gaff shot (JIIIMMMMYYYYYYYY!!!!! HAHAHA) we were in 4-6' of water and we were not targeting them

What I'm getting at is that you can fight most fish using almost any setup, but whether you want to be sporty and underpowered, perfectly matched, or absolutely overpowered (yawnnnn) is up to you. And be careful searching the web for "tips" from various forums, bc chances are, you'll be told to tow your 36' Super-Cat with your Toyota Rav4 and head out there with 18000 Saragosas with the most expensive rod you can buy and spooled with line for catching BFT.

A nice MH to H rod 7-8' range and a 5-8000 series reel will have you setup for success in the Big Bend. Spool it with 30-40lb braid and (pending the species) a few feet of 40-80lb FC (and if you're throwing artificials or soaking live bait) with some solid knots and you'll be good to go.

That's a good discussion of how fishing can go. I will tell you this, with absolute honesty - I fished with a friend in my boat off of Carrabelle and we were targeting Tarpon, using live bait. Both of us were using serious spinning tackle as you describe above, but his was spooled with 40 lb mono, rather than braid. I jumped one off, he jumped one and the fight was on. That man knew how to fight tarpon and how to have me use the boat and line angle to his advantage. He loudly directed me on how to angle the boat to the fish, and we constantly adjusted. After the first big run with many jumps headed towards Alligator Point, he muscled that fish to the boat in about a half hour, and it was the largest tarpon I have ever seen caught. And when I say caught, it was dehooked and brought to (actually somewhat into) the boat. I am just guessing it was well north of 150, just a monster. He put maximum pressure on that fish at all times and with an angle that tired the beast out much faster than I could ever imagine possible.

The point of my post is that with the same tackle you describe one angler will boat a big tarpon or cobia in quick time, while another (probably me) will take a lot longer. Skill matters.

EJ