Well, if you know me, you know how much I hate sitting around waiting. There's only so much talking that a group of guys can do in one day. I don't necessarily have to be catching non-stop, but I sure has hell have to be moving around looking for the fish. Which brings me to the brief story as to how I came upon my first and Yes, second Cobia.
Each year for the last 3 or so I have been asked to fish in this Grady White owners tournament. But Bret, you own a Sailfish not a Grady. True enough. However, my neighbor owns a Grady. So last weekend was the tournament. Our plan (his plan) was to catch Spanish Mac's in the morning, look for some live Spot for bait then go after Flounder. If we were to run across a Cobia swimming leisurely along the surface of the water, we'd have a rod ready to toss something at it.
After a couple hours of trolling with just 2 Spanish Mac's to show for our effort, we decided to take a detour into Rudee Inlet for bait. I threw the 8 foot cast net a couple time near the rock jetty but only came up with Pin Fish. Looking off into a little deeper water, I see this Asian guy with a 10 or 12 foot net catching load after load of nice Spot. Ah, that’s what we’re looking for. So I tell my Captain, “move the boat out a little further where that Asian guy is.” Him (my Captain), being the owner of a Grady White, I knew he’d have no problem pushing his way through the maze of boats. And he didn’t. Have any problem with it, that is.
One cast of the net and we had all the Spot we could use for the day. Off we went, but instead of running back into the bay for Flounder, we decided to visit the buoy line about 3.5 miles off the beach and look for Cobia. Somewhere around the 2nd or 3rd buoy, we came across a Hammerhead shark. It tried to hook itself on my rig but once it got everything but the head, it took off. Then we see our quarry. A couple Cobia circling around a buoy. We threw live Spot and also bucktails at the fish but they didn’t want anything we had to offer.
Couple buoys later we find another Cobe. This one was also finicky, but once I put the live Spot next to it's head, it turned on it and took the bait. After a very brief (unlike this story) fight, in comes a little 25” pup of a Cobia. But hey, It was my FIRST!! I couldn’t be happier.
Fast forward to day 2 of this tournament. We spend hours looking for and cast netting bait then head out in search of Flounder. No love with the Flounder so we look around the 2nd and 3rd Islands for Cobia. Saw one but it spooked before we could get close enough to throw a bait at him. This time, I was armed with 6 lively and fresh Eels that I bought on the ride in. Long story short! (Yeah, as if that’s possible at this point!) Any way, we move on towards the Highrise of the CBBT slowly with the Captain’s son on the hardtop and me on the bow looking for Cobia. Finally, we see one. Dead ahead just swimming along on the surface without a care in the world. I cast the Eel out to him and he ignores it. Cast again and he turns on it but quickly moves back away. We continue our pursuit. On the 4th or 5th cast, I set the Eel directly in front of him and he Slams it. I feed him some line, flip the bail, check the drag then start reeling.
After a relatively and unexpectedly short fight, we net a nice 47” Cobia.
My second but also my first keeper. We found one more fish but again, it took off before we could get a bait to him. I will also point out that this fish took 2nd place in the tournament. It weighed in at 28.7 lbs. Now, I plan to marinade it in some Italian dressing or maybe sesame ginger dressing and place it on the Grill for my big fish fry this Saturday. Yum, Yum!!!Thanks for reading, hope I didn’t bore you too much. Sorry for the picture but it’s the best I have right now. Other pictures were taken but they haven’t been sent to me yet.
Next report will probably come later next week. I think I’m taking the wife, daughter and my daughter’s boyfriend out fishing on Tuesday. I’ll let you know how that goes. I have to promise to bring the boyfriend back in! :)
