Cobia Today

Tricia and I celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary yesterday on into the night. I had every intention of sleeping in today and not fishing. The dang cat decided I was not sleeping in and when I checked my phone there was a text from Wes Blow. He was fishing with Rob Wittman again and they had already caught 8 cobia. Now awake, I threw some rods in the truck, grabbed some eels and drove over to the boat. I started out trolling the oceanfront again, hoping for a king. No luck with that and Wes was up to 10 cobia. I ran into the bay to catch something. I saw a half-dozen cobia and a red drum. Picked a cobia off of the back of a turtle. Got a DNA sample and released it.

Having caught something, I ran back to the ocean front to resume trolling for a king. Rod goes off right away and it is another cobia. Trying to separate the fish and the net from the treble hooks, another rod goes off with another cobia. This one is smaller and the net is tied up so I just swing that one into the boat and it goes crazy. I leave it to do its thing and put the boat in gear with one remaining lure in the water. The little cobia had managed to find the net anyway. With the boat on auto-pilot, I proceed to try and untangle, unhook, and release the fish. I get the bigger fish unhooked and out of the net. Working on that little fish, I manage let it get a hook in my left index finger. I grab the lure with my right hand to keep the thrashing cobia from doing more damage and proceed to get a hook stuck in my right palm. So now, I have both hands impaled on hooks tangled in a net and attached to an irritated cobia. It took a break and I was able to assess the situation.

The hook in the left hand was buried. The one in the right hand was just to the barb so I was able pull that one off. I was then able to cut the hook off in the other hand, freeing me from the fish. It was too deep to pull out but I was able to push it on through and pull it out by the point. Now, I still had to deal with those cobia. The good news is that I was successful without anymore bloodshed and collected DNA samples. I had enough fun and headed in. The really good news, is that Wes and Congressman Wittman ended up catching 15 cobia.