A nice day on Wednesday greeted me and my party of one for a day of flats fishing. Greg Austin from CO is a good repeat customer of mine and is excellent in the use of top water lures. We started out deep in the "Hockey Hole" just outside the Carrabelle River. Numerous Ladyfish and a few Blues roamed the edge of the inner sand bar while a few Trout lurked in the thick grass. Greg slammed a big Trout on a "Pop-R" that weighed in at near 6 lbs. He picked up another Trout that was pushing the 5 LB mark in near the same area.
From there, we moved east along the flats when suddenly, we saw a monster Tarpon rip through a school of LY's. I quickly rigged up a Pen Powergraph with a chunk of Ladyfish and set it out on a flat line. A short time later, the pole was slammed! A monster Tarpon well over the 100 LB mark was jumping and tearing line off the Penn reel like a freight train. Just as I powered up the boat for a chase, the line was cut just above the leader...and so we watched the Tarpon jump down the flats until it threw the hook.
Without wasting time, I rigged up another flat line while Greg was hitting all kinds of fish on his "Pop-R," A short time later, the Penn Powergraph was slammed again and we heard a big fish jump! I thought we had another Tarpon but it moved around like a big shark. Greg wanted to see what it was so he took the rod and fought the fish.
After nearly a half hour into the fight, the fish surfaced closed to the boat and gave me a big shock....it was a monster Cobia well over 40 lbs! Marine Patrol officer Phillip Messer was standing by to check us...actually he was curious to see what we were fighting. I yelled over to him "Hey Phil...stand off!...We have a monster Cobia on line!"
Phil is courteous and gave us plenty of room while Greg continued to wear down the Cob. After nearly 45 minutes, I gaffed the big fish and laid him out on the deck. Officer Messer came along boatside and checked out the Cobia. He stated that he never saw a Cob that big inshore...not to mention it was hooked in 3 feet of water!
From there, we spent the remainder of the day fishing the surf along Dog Island and found a few Flounder, Mackerel and Whiting. As we drifted off the East end of Dog Island onto the reef, I looked back toward Carrabelle and saw an ominous sky building in from the NW with another dark patch north of Lanark. As the sky thickened, I told Greg we gotta go NOW!
I ran along the backside of Dog Island and crossed the bay into the flats at Lanark and raced to the Carrabelle River. We just made it into the river and tied the boat up to the Pavilion on Marine St. when the storm hit....and it was a bad one....with 70 mph winds, torrential rain and loads of lightning. Greg was amazed by the power of this storm. In Colorado, they don't see storms like this....and lucky for us, we don't see to many. Anyway, Greg will be fishing with me later this week for another day on the flats.
Tight Lines!
Capt. Bob Soderholm
Sole Searcher Charters
Carrabelle, FL
(850) 899-0455
Carrabelle report from Capt. Bob
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SoleSearcher
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