Panhandler80
03-18-2012, 09:04 PM
Some pics... report to follow... just took sheepie filets out of the grease!
6 hours on the water
15 sheepies
10 spanish (I think)
1 cobia... probably low 50s. When we boated him we said 60, but of course we had some ice / ground shrinkage over the course of the day as emotions eased.
Fish was much larger than she looks in the picture with my buddies and the sheepshead. In that pick she'd just come out of that box and she and not been straightened out at all. We used some very interesting techniques to get her bent up and crammed into that box.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/Panhandler80/cobiafishlucky.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/Panhandler80/cobiafishluckyfish.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/Panhandler80/cobialuckyluckyfish.jpg
Report: I'll go ahead and admit that hooking the cobia took zero skill. However, the circus that followed was fairly impressive.
Yesterday morning - we get somewhat of a late start yesterday. At around 9:30 we pull away form the dock and we were headed to the marina for some live shrimp. Our plan was to sheepshead fish for a little while for some guaranteed dinner, and then go look for a cobia while casting to spanish and tossing them in a brine. Well, we get our shrimp and head to a spot on the rocks for some sheepies. As we're trying to find a spot to anchor we watch a couple come over the rail and I figure that this won't take long. We ge anchored and only one boat is catching them. They are the inshore-most boat on the east side of the east jetty. Between us and him are two other boats with a pretty good fetch between the 2nd most inshore boat and the one catching the fish. Let's go there!
Pull anchor and we get situated just right. The two boats offshore of us are not nearly as close to the rocks as we are. While anchoring we watch the fish-catching boat put two more in the boat, so I'm pretty excited. The boat settles in and I go back to the cockpit and grab my 7' live bait trout rod with a 5 year old reel (brand will remain nameless, but it's not terribly well thought of) that has never been maintained at all. It was like $50 and I considered it pretty much disposable when I bought it. Yesterday morning, I did, however tie a new braid to mono knot, and all new knots for my sheepshead rig. 20# braid, 12" mono topshot, 20# P-line flouro leader and a Gagamatsu 1/0 octopus hook.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/Panhandler80/cobiahook.jpg
So boat settles in and run back to the cockpit and flip a shrimp out next to the rocks. Nothing, nothing, THZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! Goes my line. Crap. In no time I'm down to about half of a 300 yard spool fo 20# braid. The fish is headed pretty much straight offshore, but fortunately has left the next two boats offshore of me to his SE, so we're clear there. Everybody on board asks if I want to pull anchor. I said nah... I've got about 10 more seconds and i'm out of line. I grab the smoking hot spool and start thumbing, more... more... more... gotta try something... more... WHOA! It stopped for a brief moment and even with probably 200 yards of line out and that 7' limp live bait trout rod, I felt a head shake... like when a "cobia" tries to throw up a bait. Anchor! Anchor! Anchor! I screamed. This whole time I had really been thinking big sting ray or jack crevalle. It's really hard to jude the species of a fish when you can't put but maybe 3 pounds of pressure on them. Okay, I'm now thinking cobia.
Well my two buddies are dealing with the anchor and my fish is now out in deep water and begins to head down the beach (towards the pass. Remember, we started next to the beach on the east side of the east jetty from an anchored 34' single screw boat in heavy traffic). I'm seriously like 80% certain this is a cobia, so I'm willing to start barking orders at strangers. As the fish heads down the beach, my line starts getting closer and closer to this aluminum walleye boat that's fishint out past the tip of the rocks with his line running to the S. They are just barely within ear shot, so I yell to them, "In a minute you're going to see some green braided line come up your anchor line. I've got a big fish on the other end. That line is going to ride up your anchor line. Pleae pick it up and either pass it over the boat, or just hold it above your boat, dpending on where the fish wants to go!" He looks at me so as to respond, "What the heck are you talking about?" I repeated. He goes to the bow and is looking down. He looks back and me and shrugs his shoulders. I just pointed back at the water and then at my eyeballs and then back at his anchor line. He looked back down and then the next thing I know, he grabs my line and walks about half way back to his boat and he's holding my line in the air. Fish is barely taking line at this point and we're moving forward on the anchor. The aluminum boat is probably 60 yards from us and the fish is probably at about 200 and making his way down the beach quickly. It was too funny, as we pulled up on the anchor pretty much S, and the fish headed WNW, my line literally pivoted about exactly where that guy was standing. We got the anchor up, drifted NW with the current back towards the rock and behind the other two boats offshore of us, and then spun her around and started making our way towards the boat holding our line. Once clear of the other two, we headed to the south so as to put a little bend in the line, and I instructed the guy to let go. He did and the line hit the water about 15' from his bow with a straight on shot to the fish with no traffic.
Next step was to gain some line. I ran around the cabin and to the bow and we ran the fish down to gain some line back. Once I was comfortable with the capacity I came back tot he cockpit where I could communicate with whoever was on the helm. We are now in the middle fo the pass with about 100 yards out and I see brown up top! Bingo! Cobia.
We're keeping good pressure on good angles out there in that deep water because he was up top, but I could not afford to play the straight up and down game with that gear. We decided we needed to try and move him into shallow water. Problem is, with 12# line you really can't move a big fish like that when you're straight up and down. We need to pull him across the water and just keep enough capacity to feel secure in not getting dumped. Problem is, I can reduce that angle to get him up top without having to worry about getting clipped by jetski / pontoon / who-knows-what at the tip of what now are the west jetties. About this tiem we some boats circle us up to watch and that cut down ont he jet-ski / pontoon crowd.
So, we slowly work the fish past the west jetties and started to get him on the green reef. He made one more blistering run when he saw that shallow water and we let him. We got him back up top again and just kept steady pressure on him, using the boat a lot of the time and we finally got him onto the sand bar. We zig-zagged with him to the W ((using the boat as much as the fried reel and noodle trout rod) down the 2nd sand bar keeping him up top and in shallow water for about another half hour, and finally got him to the boat. Could have been game over, but we had one missed shot with the faff.
I had zero lifting power with that rod, and I swear to you guys, when the 1.5 oz lead came out of the water, it maxed that rod out. I'd walk forward in the cockpit as far as i could in order to get the fish close, but then my line would come close to the rail and nobody dared leader the fish. The only reason we still had him on was because the circle hook at got him just below his eye on a piece of skin (or had re-hooked itself there) and was just barely hanging on. Bad news here, but good news in the fact that it kept that 20# off of all things abrassive. So we missed chance one and then spent about 5 min straight up and down. I'm fearful that he's down there resting up, so we take off down the beach with the boat and put about 50 yards between us and again start workign side/side angles on him across the top. He came up top again, but unlike the last time, we were able to surft him on into the boat a little easier, and got elevated (cooler lid) and didn't hold my rod tip quite as high. This allowed me to have more pulling power since I have no lifting power on that rod, and I was able to put a few more oz of pressure on him there at boatside (which came at the expense of less shock absoprtion from the rod. Good new is that I had light drag and was doing most of that with my palm... should he had had a burst, I think I could have let go of that spool and been okay)... so we surfs, in... I give it all I possibly can with that rod, and we sunk a gaff in him finally. Game over.
Another shot of the hook in his face...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/Panhandler80/cobiahook2.jpg
Light tackle is such a stressful thing. They say lots of folks loose fish from not putting ENOUGH pressure on them... too much time means hooks and knots fatigue, or hooks wear through flesh, fish are able to figh you in rounds, etc. I believe all of that, but just look at this... granted, I only had 12# topshot on that wimpy rod, so I really couldn't have pulled any harder than I did, but If I have, I don't know how the picture above woudl ahve held up. I guess it's all a judgement thing. Also, it's not like this was an 800# bluefin on light gear in 1,000 ft of water. I figured we'd get this fish eventually if we coudl keep him shallow and just wear him out. It turned out okay in the end.
We had a few boats watching us and they were probably expecting a 100 pounder to come over the rail given the length of the fight. We probably looked like a bunch of idiots out there, but whatever. We got the fish and I was sure to let them all know that it was on a 7' noodle with 12# gear.
Here's another shot of the fish (and the rod) back at the dock. Unfortunately she looks bigger when help up by a skinny feller, but it was still a quality fish. In this picture I'd already knocked one side off...hence the crooked looking neck and ability hold up (still with quite a bit of effor, though) with one arm. She had one of the widest dang frog-heads I've ever seen on a cobia and had some sersiously thick and meaty shoulders on her.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/Panhandler80/cobiarod.jpg
Ol' toad head!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/Panhandler80/cobiadock2.jpg
Here's what I meant by her being just a tad bigger than the 124qt cooler...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/Panhandler80/cobiadock3.jpg
I'm really not sure what the weakest link in the whole deal was... the hook set, the hook, the 12", or the 7' live bait trout rod. All-in-all, a fish we had no business boating, and by far the most unluckey ling in the GOM. I will say that boat handling and communiication was just about top-notch and it made the catch possible. I'll be the first to admit that luck still had a lot to dow ith it.
Whole thing took about 45 minutes and took us probably 3/4 of mile from where we started. We idled back to the rocks and casted to some spanish, then we anchored up on my favorite sheepshead spot and put 15 of them in the boat in about an hour. After that called it day and headed back to the house.
Not a bad afternoon!
Major thanks to the guys from MN in the aluminum boat! Couldn't ahve caught the fish without them getting that line above their boat and in somebody's hands.
Aslo... this goes to show that a cobia on the bottom can be just about impossible to see... even in clear water, on a beautiful day in 12'. This fish had just run a guantlent of tower boats to our east. Hit the rocks, hung a left with the incoming tide and ate my shrimp. I don't predict and awesome sight-fishing year this year, but obviously there are some fish out there. I have learned of 7 or 8 that were cauht on a jig Thur, Fri and Sat... for what that's worth.
6 hours on the water
15 sheepies
10 spanish (I think)
1 cobia... probably low 50s. When we boated him we said 60, but of course we had some ice / ground shrinkage over the course of the day as emotions eased.
Fish was much larger than she looks in the picture with my buddies and the sheepshead. In that pick she'd just come out of that box and she and not been straightened out at all. We used some very interesting techniques to get her bent up and crammed into that box.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/Panhandler80/cobiafishlucky.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/Panhandler80/cobiafishluckyfish.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/Panhandler80/cobialuckyluckyfish.jpg
Report: I'll go ahead and admit that hooking the cobia took zero skill. However, the circus that followed was fairly impressive.
Yesterday morning - we get somewhat of a late start yesterday. At around 9:30 we pull away form the dock and we were headed to the marina for some live shrimp. Our plan was to sheepshead fish for a little while for some guaranteed dinner, and then go look for a cobia while casting to spanish and tossing them in a brine. Well, we get our shrimp and head to a spot on the rocks for some sheepies. As we're trying to find a spot to anchor we watch a couple come over the rail and I figure that this won't take long. We ge anchored and only one boat is catching them. They are the inshore-most boat on the east side of the east jetty. Between us and him are two other boats with a pretty good fetch between the 2nd most inshore boat and the one catching the fish. Let's go there!
Pull anchor and we get situated just right. The two boats offshore of us are not nearly as close to the rocks as we are. While anchoring we watch the fish-catching boat put two more in the boat, so I'm pretty excited. The boat settles in and I go back to the cockpit and grab my 7' live bait trout rod with a 5 year old reel (brand will remain nameless, but it's not terribly well thought of) that has never been maintained at all. It was like $50 and I considered it pretty much disposable when I bought it. Yesterday morning, I did, however tie a new braid to mono knot, and all new knots for my sheepshead rig. 20# braid, 12" mono topshot, 20# P-line flouro leader and a Gagamatsu 1/0 octopus hook.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/Panhandler80/cobiahook.jpg
So boat settles in and run back to the cockpit and flip a shrimp out next to the rocks. Nothing, nothing, THZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ! Goes my line. Crap. In no time I'm down to about half of a 300 yard spool fo 20# braid. The fish is headed pretty much straight offshore, but fortunately has left the next two boats offshore of me to his SE, so we're clear there. Everybody on board asks if I want to pull anchor. I said nah... I've got about 10 more seconds and i'm out of line. I grab the smoking hot spool and start thumbing, more... more... more... gotta try something... more... WHOA! It stopped for a brief moment and even with probably 200 yards of line out and that 7' limp live bait trout rod, I felt a head shake... like when a "cobia" tries to throw up a bait. Anchor! Anchor! Anchor! I screamed. This whole time I had really been thinking big sting ray or jack crevalle. It's really hard to jude the species of a fish when you can't put but maybe 3 pounds of pressure on them. Okay, I'm now thinking cobia.
Well my two buddies are dealing with the anchor and my fish is now out in deep water and begins to head down the beach (towards the pass. Remember, we started next to the beach on the east side of the east jetty from an anchored 34' single screw boat in heavy traffic). I'm seriously like 80% certain this is a cobia, so I'm willing to start barking orders at strangers. As the fish heads down the beach, my line starts getting closer and closer to this aluminum walleye boat that's fishint out past the tip of the rocks with his line running to the S. They are just barely within ear shot, so I yell to them, "In a minute you're going to see some green braided line come up your anchor line. I've got a big fish on the other end. That line is going to ride up your anchor line. Pleae pick it up and either pass it over the boat, or just hold it above your boat, dpending on where the fish wants to go!" He looks at me so as to respond, "What the heck are you talking about?" I repeated. He goes to the bow and is looking down. He looks back and me and shrugs his shoulders. I just pointed back at the water and then at my eyeballs and then back at his anchor line. He looked back down and then the next thing I know, he grabs my line and walks about half way back to his boat and he's holding my line in the air. Fish is barely taking line at this point and we're moving forward on the anchor. The aluminum boat is probably 60 yards from us and the fish is probably at about 200 and making his way down the beach quickly. It was too funny, as we pulled up on the anchor pretty much S, and the fish headed WNW, my line literally pivoted about exactly where that guy was standing. We got the anchor up, drifted NW with the current back towards the rock and behind the other two boats offshore of us, and then spun her around and started making our way towards the boat holding our line. Once clear of the other two, we headed to the south so as to put a little bend in the line, and I instructed the guy to let go. He did and the line hit the water about 15' from his bow with a straight on shot to the fish with no traffic.
Next step was to gain some line. I ran around the cabin and to the bow and we ran the fish down to gain some line back. Once I was comfortable with the capacity I came back tot he cockpit where I could communicate with whoever was on the helm. We are now in the middle fo the pass with about 100 yards out and I see brown up top! Bingo! Cobia.
We're keeping good pressure on good angles out there in that deep water because he was up top, but I could not afford to play the straight up and down game with that gear. We decided we needed to try and move him into shallow water. Problem is, with 12# line you really can't move a big fish like that when you're straight up and down. We need to pull him across the water and just keep enough capacity to feel secure in not getting dumped. Problem is, I can reduce that angle to get him up top without having to worry about getting clipped by jetski / pontoon / who-knows-what at the tip of what now are the west jetties. About this tiem we some boats circle us up to watch and that cut down ont he jet-ski / pontoon crowd.
So, we slowly work the fish past the west jetties and started to get him on the green reef. He made one more blistering run when he saw that shallow water and we let him. We got him back up top again and just kept steady pressure on him, using the boat a lot of the time and we finally got him onto the sand bar. We zig-zagged with him to the W ((using the boat as much as the fried reel and noodle trout rod) down the 2nd sand bar keeping him up top and in shallow water for about another half hour, and finally got him to the boat. Could have been game over, but we had one missed shot with the faff.
I had zero lifting power with that rod, and I swear to you guys, when the 1.5 oz lead came out of the water, it maxed that rod out. I'd walk forward in the cockpit as far as i could in order to get the fish close, but then my line would come close to the rail and nobody dared leader the fish. The only reason we still had him on was because the circle hook at got him just below his eye on a piece of skin (or had re-hooked itself there) and was just barely hanging on. Bad news here, but good news in the fact that it kept that 20# off of all things abrassive. So we missed chance one and then spent about 5 min straight up and down. I'm fearful that he's down there resting up, so we take off down the beach with the boat and put about 50 yards between us and again start workign side/side angles on him across the top. He came up top again, but unlike the last time, we were able to surft him on into the boat a little easier, and got elevated (cooler lid) and didn't hold my rod tip quite as high. This allowed me to have more pulling power since I have no lifting power on that rod, and I was able to put a few more oz of pressure on him there at boatside (which came at the expense of less shock absoprtion from the rod. Good new is that I had light drag and was doing most of that with my palm... should he had had a burst, I think I could have let go of that spool and been okay)... so we surfs, in... I give it all I possibly can with that rod, and we sunk a gaff in him finally. Game over.
Another shot of the hook in his face...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/Panhandler80/cobiahook2.jpg
Light tackle is such a stressful thing. They say lots of folks loose fish from not putting ENOUGH pressure on them... too much time means hooks and knots fatigue, or hooks wear through flesh, fish are able to figh you in rounds, etc. I believe all of that, but just look at this... granted, I only had 12# topshot on that wimpy rod, so I really couldn't have pulled any harder than I did, but If I have, I don't know how the picture above woudl ahve held up. I guess it's all a judgement thing. Also, it's not like this was an 800# bluefin on light gear in 1,000 ft of water. I figured we'd get this fish eventually if we coudl keep him shallow and just wear him out. It turned out okay in the end.
We had a few boats watching us and they were probably expecting a 100 pounder to come over the rail given the length of the fight. We probably looked like a bunch of idiots out there, but whatever. We got the fish and I was sure to let them all know that it was on a 7' noodle with 12# gear.
Here's another shot of the fish (and the rod) back at the dock. Unfortunately she looks bigger when help up by a skinny feller, but it was still a quality fish. In this picture I'd already knocked one side off...hence the crooked looking neck and ability hold up (still with quite a bit of effor, though) with one arm. She had one of the widest dang frog-heads I've ever seen on a cobia and had some sersiously thick and meaty shoulders on her.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/Panhandler80/cobiarod.jpg
Ol' toad head!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/Panhandler80/cobiadock2.jpg
Here's what I meant by her being just a tad bigger than the 124qt cooler...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v161/Panhandler80/cobiadock3.jpg
I'm really not sure what the weakest link in the whole deal was... the hook set, the hook, the 12", or the 7' live bait trout rod. All-in-all, a fish we had no business boating, and by far the most unluckey ling in the GOM. I will say that boat handling and communiication was just about top-notch and it made the catch possible. I'll be the first to admit that luck still had a lot to dow ith it.
Whole thing took about 45 minutes and took us probably 3/4 of mile from where we started. We idled back to the rocks and casted to some spanish, then we anchored up on my favorite sheepshead spot and put 15 of them in the boat in about an hour. After that called it day and headed back to the house.
Not a bad afternoon!
Major thanks to the guys from MN in the aluminum boat! Couldn't ahve caught the fish without them getting that line above their boat and in somebody's hands.
Aslo... this goes to show that a cobia on the bottom can be just about impossible to see... even in clear water, on a beautiful day in 12'. This fish had just run a guantlent of tower boats to our east. Hit the rocks, hung a left with the incoming tide and ate my shrimp. I don't predict and awesome sight-fishing year this year, but obviously there are some fish out there. I have learned of 7 or 8 that were cauht on a jig Thur, Fri and Sat... for what that's worth.