Cobia

[jamisjockey]

Do you target cobia at all during the year? Share your secrets! I need to put one in my boat!

[rchanner]

I've only put a whopping lifetime total of 3 Cobia in the boat, and 2 of those were spearfishing, so I'm far from an expert....all I can say is that the one I caught on a rod and reel wasn't the least bit interested in any of the several lures thrown at him, but hit a live pogy dang near the second it hit the water. From that I guess we can surmise that live bait would be among the best choices.

[triumphrick]

I swear they are part of the remora family! We find them down here following rays in shallow water. They do like live bait. We also get them in the deeper water of the ship cahnnels late in the summer. I have gotten them on a fast dropping high tide....

[Florida R227]

I had several of them circle my boat last summer while I was bottom fishing and tried everything I had to get them to take a bite. A couple of these were huge and I tried everything without luck. I think they just must be super finicky. I did not have any live fish in the livewell to try however so that might have made a difference.

[Lockwoods]

I was bottom fishing last year, when I saw a fish appear on the fish finder. The fish finder showed the fish fairly close to the surface. I asked one of my buddies to drop a line half way down the column and the bait squid on the hood caught the fish's attention. He hooked the cobia (~36"), but I lost him trying to squeeze him into my net - lesson learned.

Moments later, we eyeballed another smaller cobia, dropped another line, hooked, but broke loose at the surface. Again, on squid.

[petrel]

You can throw poppers or bucktails at them while they are holed up around bridge pilings (CBBT) or channel markers. If they ignore them, try live spot, eels, or cut menhaden. The few I've caught have been on cut menhaden while chumming.

If you launch out of owl creek, little creek, or lynnhaven, follow the bay boats with towers (or step ladders). They are sight casting to them. Watch them, they have the secrets!

[captbud4222]

Here in NC they actually migrate inshore to spawn, so we see great numbers in late May early June, but I have caught them blind slow trolling pogies between Artificial reefs and have thrown metal lures at them as they swim by the boat.

Just three weeks ago I moved my spread to a fresh reef and looked behind the boat, and something caught my eye, right in the prop,, I don't mean the propwash I mean this cobia was running right up to the prop and then swimming back about three feet before making another lunge toward the prop,, even though I know he was close to the minimum,, 33" in NC I hooked a live pogey on a kingfish rig tossed it into the wash, and BOOM! I was on,, I got him to the boat and before I could lip gaff him , he shook his head and snapped the line.,

We have guys that will from time to time , free gaff them as they swim by,,,,, better have a good size cockpit or an open cooler,, otherwise all HeII breaks loose.

[reelfishin]

We have caught a few. Seems we are doing better than we used to do. Our larges being a 90 lb cobia. The others ranging from 30 to 50 would be a good guess. They can be caught at the CBBT.

[361Wahoo]

Live pin perch work well down here. I always leave a flat line out while drifting a wreck.

[reelfishin]

First of all I need to know what kind of electronic you have on your boat. How about a GPS, chartplotter or what. As you already know there is a lot more to fishing than just bait.