Cobia on the Marks
Capt. Fred Everson
May 26, 2009
Tampa Bay - Saltwater Fishing Report
May is generally a good month to look for cobia on the flats. This year that has not been the case. I've seen a few fish when conditions were right, but nothing like the numbers that were there in years past, and so far I've come up empty. The only cobia I have seen in shallow water were all very big. These fish have been hooked before and they know all about lines and leaders. Sometimes they will even refuse a big pinfish – normally cobia candy.
Water clarity on the flats has been poor for weeks because of all the wind, though thankfully it has been fairly calm until the seabreeze kicks in just before noon for the past few trips. Visibility in the middle of the bay has been much better, especially on rising tides, so last week my fishing partner and I decided to check some marks for cobia and maybe a triple tail. As luck would have it, the wind was already up and blowing before we left the dock.
We hit the flats first to try and net some bait on the flats in front of Cockroach Bay. Bait has been the big positive on the local fishing scene for the past few weeks. Even with the water clouded we saw silver flashes everywhere we went between the mouth of the Little Manatee River and Cockroach Bay. Keli Emery graciously offered to throw the net, and selfishly I let her. Good choice, because she filled the livewell with greenbacks with three tosses.
We ran out to the middle of the bay and began to check range markers and channel buoys for cobia. We cast at several buoys without seeing anything, but the cobia aren't always on top, and tripletail seem to favor the middle of the water column. The third spot we hit we saw two keeper sized cobia circling a range marker. Unfortunately we were only 10 feet off the structure when we saw the fish, and they came right at the boat. Keli hooked the smaller of the two fish less the three yards off the bow and it quickly turned back into the mark and broke her off.
The other fish did not appear to be spooked, but it sounded out of sight. Several casts later with a live sardine, Keli hooked that fish too. This time it ran away from the structure and I thought we had a good chance of landing it. But I got a good look at the fish, and it was in the 40-pound class. Such fish go where they will, and when it headed back to the pilings there was nothing she could do about it. We were 0 for 2.
The next range marker was most productive. I hooked six small grouper on a paddle-tailed jig, and Keli caught a fat mangrove snapper. Then we saw another cobia sitting motionless on the other side of the mark. We were too close and it spooked before we could cast to it.
We also saw a few mackerel, and a host of threadfin herring. These are the first threadfins I have seen this year, and with them usually comes everything else we fish for in the summer months. Look for the winds to lay down for the next few months, but then again hurricane season begins June 01. Let's hope they all go someplace else.
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