By Joe Richard

After wintering in South Florida, legions of cobia are beginning to migrate northward along the Atlantic Coast and westward along the Gulf Coast. Additional cobia may have avoided winter by staying far offshore around hidden wrecks and reefs, in water as deep as 200 feet. However, when Spring Break arrives, both groups of these fish head for the beach.

Nowhere are cobia greeted with more eagerness than Florida’s Panhandle, where big-money, monthlong cobia tournaments encourage even the billfish fleet to cruise the sandbars for these fish. It isn’t often you see 60-foot offshore boats prowling in 12 feet of water, with anglers perched like crows in every high spot, scanning for pods of cobia. In fact, you won’t find that anywhere else in U.S. waters. You might find beachfront cobia in some far-away land where cobia prowl, like West Africa or the Western Pacific, but they’re certainly not chased with the expensive fiberglass we have on the Florida Panhandle.

This epicenter of angler effort in the cobia’s world has a favorite catching technique that works the world over for these fish—throwing leadhead, bucktail jigs. These are colorful creations weighing up to three ounces, gussied up with extra color and tinsel, twister plastic tails, even sweetened with fresh squid or small blue crab. Here on the Panhandle, cobia jigs are still locally crafted with pride and sold in local tackle stores, the old-fashioned way. But more on that later.

In April, everything from battlewagons to small center consoles prowl the golden stretch from Panama City, Florida to Orange Beach, Alabama. Upon spotting a pod of cobia, anglers fire a broadside of these flashy jigs. They’re thrown with short but fairly stout spin rods with unusually big guides that allow for long, frictionless casts. In open water, this spin tackle does a good job of landing cobia, unless another boat encroaches on the action and gets too close. That’s happened before and one can imagine what happens when a pod of big fish are discovered, with 50 or 100 large riding on the top fish.

Cobia can become finicky about even the best of jigs, however, so out comes the local natural bait of choice—live American eels imported from the Atlantic coast. They’re kept on the boat in a stupefied condition in a chilled cooler. When a lip-hooked eel hits the warm water and spots a heavy cobia lumbering its way, it usually wakes up. But not for long; it’s almost like that old adage of “waking up the dead.” Cobia inhale eels and munch them thoughtfully, before moving off. Cobia of 90 pounds or bigger are caught here every spring. Latch onto one of these babies, and you’ve got your hands full.

Temperature is the Trigger

The action heats up when water temps finally reach 70 degrees. A warm, south wind will push water temps up, but creates a choppy surf—making the fish more difficult to spot. A north wind flattens the surf, but lowers the air and water temperature, so dress accordingly on such a day. A light, south breeze is best with a bright sun. If you see college kids showing lots of skin on the beach and “catching rays,” so to speak, without shivering or clustered behind wind breaks, that’s cobia weather.

On the big Gulf piers, serious “pier rats” intently face east and watch for oncoming cobia. They’re prepared for long hours of vigilance so wear jackets, protective hats and long pants. Pier etiquette says that the first angler to spot a fish or approaching group is allowed the first cast. You have to stay cool and perform in front of an antsy crowd, so don’t choke, now! Whether you hook up or not, after that, anything goes. Specialty cobia jigs can be cast up to 200 feet or more, and you don’t want to be standing behind these pier guys without wearing a helmet and body armor.

The Gulf Range

Farther west, these same cobia scatter through the countless oil rigs beginning on both sides of the Chandeleur Islands in Mississippi waters, and then stretching all the way through Texas. The most tried-and-true method for cobia hunters from April through October is to run-and-gun a dozen production platforms each day, searching for these fish on top, and jigging throughout the water column.

Cobia are fairly easy to find in Louisiana. Last summer we caught two cobes of perhaps 50 and 30 pounds off of the coast where Holly Beach used to exist, prior to Hurricane Rita. Both fish were released, because we were offshore in a 21-foot Key West boat, jigging for snapper and Spanish mackerel. Our fishbox was only 3 feet long and it was August. We could have dragged the cobia aboard and posed them for all sorts of hero pictures, but it would have made a mess and probably killed the fish. We already had a nice catch of fish on ice and there was no need to get greedy.

While fishing the Texas/Louisiana border for many years, I got used to seeing cobia follow hooked bottom fish to the boat. We used to climb the offshore platforms, spotting cobia on the upcurrent side, or sometimes up to 100 yards out from the structure. (These days, trespassing on oil rigs isn’t recommended for all sorts of security reasons.) Summer action out there is dependable. Even around Labor Day, schools of smaller cobia can be thick; several times we tagged and released 30 in a day, simply by jigging them up with trout tackle.

Farther south in Texas, cobia are harder to find. After combing the oil rigs along the middle Texas coast as a charter captain for a few years, the sight of a summer cobia was something of a surprise. These fish are still caught every weekend however, when and if the wind quits blowing. But buying into a tournament side pot for cobia in much of Texas is a little like buying a lottery ticket; luck is certainly needed. The best you can hope for is to find a choice shrimpboat that has been shoveling hundreds of pounds of bycatch overboard for a few hours on end—while anchored close to natural, hard bottom. You don’t find that scenario every day, however.

The Atlantic Migration

On the Atlantic side, cobia are marching straight up the coast in late spring, often schooling around the bigger manta rays just offshore. Last year a single boat could find dozens of these rays milling around in water rich with plankton. Sometimes there were so many rays there weren’t enough cobia to escort them. The trick here is to pitch a jig or live bait into the strike zone, without snagging the ray. Some anglers have resorted to using spotter planes to report where these rays have congregated. The “best” rays viewed from above have a fuzzy outline, which means cobia are around and beneath them!

Off Georgia, cobia congregate around offshore wrecks, and the charterboats catch their share each summer. Capt. Judy Helmey aboard Miss Judy Charters fishes the sunken wrecks and also the Savannah snapper banks, and her boat sees its share of cobia each summer. Their typical drill, while anchored, is simple: Upon spotting a cobia following a hooked bottom fish on the way up, a jig or natural bait is presented and it’s game on.

In South Carolina, folks are getting serious about cobia. These fish show up about April 15 in the bays, and then move offshore in July or August. It’s speculated that not all return to Florida each winter; some of these fish may be wintering in the Gulf Stream around deeper wrecks and rocks. Way inshore, bay anglers here catch some of their cobes up to 15 miles inland.

Keeping Track

Fish taggers in South Carolina have been using expensive sonic tags on these fish, tracking their movements by satellite. The newest sonic tags are more compact, so anglers can tag smaller cobia. It used to require a cobia of 60 pounds or greater, to drag a sonic tag around with success. A number of folks in South Carolina are convinced that cobia spawn either inside or just outside of Port Royal Sound in July, after studying cobia spawning activity and noting similar movements tracked by satellite. They realize their fish are very migratory—one spaghetti (regular fish-tagged) schoolie of 14 or 15 inches was recaptured in Stuart, Florida only 20 days later; that’s really scooting down the coast. There is also local speculation about raising and spawning cobia at South Carolina’s Waddell Mariculture Center. (If so, they should keep the heaters on each winter).

June is likely the prime month for North Carolina’s cobia, near the northern end of their migration. With wrecks offshore and lots of deep bay water, these fish can be caught inside simply by anchoring and chumming over favorite spots. June is when a 116.5-pound world record cobia was caught near Oregon Inlet two summers ago.

The huge fish was caught by angler Billy Ray Lucas aboard the charterboat Marauder, run by Capt. Troy Crane. According to news reports, they were south of the Inlet near Salvo when the big fish hit and Lucas picked up the rod. It was in this location that Lucas and Crane had found several large cobia in the last few days. That fish hit a Fairwaters bucktail jig and the fight lasted about 45 minutes. It took two gaffs to lift the fish aboard. (Note to serious cobia anglers: always carry two gaffs.) The IGFA approved the new record, which was caught on 50-pound line. The line tested too heavy, but there was a vacancy in the 80-pound class for a monster cobia of that size.

We should all be so fortunate to hook a cobia of that size on spin tackle.

Custom-made Cobia Jigs

Serious cobia fishermen anywhere in the world should keep at least a small box of colorful bucktail jigs, ranging from a 1⁄2-ounce to 3-ounces, for these fish. Sometimes you just have to shop out of state. A Texas angler, for instance, regularly buys his jigs long-distance from Half Hitch Tackle in Destin, Florida.

The Florida Panhandle has perhaps the most dedicated army of cobia jiggers found today, and a few of them make custom jigs for local stores. One of them, James Warf of Fort Walton Beach, is said to have his entire “jig room” in his house covered with cobia jigs. He supplies them to nearby Half Hitch Tackle and Harborwalk Marina in Destin, Florida. At about $12 each, you can bet these are finely crafted. Some have tougher paints than others and last longer, however. The staff at Half Hitch also ties their own cobia jigs in more simple patterns with less flash and glitter, costing about half as much. Warf can be reached at (850) 862-1554.

In Pensacola, Shane Lucas supplies custom jigs around town, though I couldn’t find them in the stores. He’s earned a loyal following from local cobia fishermen and apparently supplies them direct.

Also in Pensacola, Outcast Bait & Tackle (which hosts their cobia tournament for the entire month of April) supplies their own custom-made cobia jigs. They have an employee named Willie who makes them, so they’re called Willie Jigs. They say the best-selling color combos are orange-and-white and orange-and-yellow. Such high-visibility jigs are great for fishing close to the beach.

SWA

Joe Richard is author of the Cobia Bible, and won the AFTCO Tag Award in 1988 for tagging the most cobia in the Gulf of Mexico.