Cobia – Another Winter Snow”fish”

By
Captain Jack Teague
Finatic Charters
www.finaticcharters.com
email: finaticcharters@bellsouth.netfinaticcharters@bellsouth.net
305-304-3993
Copyright 2008

This is the bi-monthly column I wrote for the Dec 09-Jan 10 edition of a Florida Keys fishing publication entitled "Fishing the Florida Keys".


I first heard of Cobia not long after I moved to the Florida Panhandle in 1981. During their spring migration, Cobia were a favorite target of Okaloosa Island public fishing pier anglers near Destin. Pier fishing for Cobia there was a full contact event, potentially hazardous to your health, as the whipping surf rods filled the air with heavy, feathered jigs with anglers jockeying for first presentation to the passing quarry so I didn’t try it very often.


Moving to Jacksonville in 1982, I learned that Cobia were highly sought there also. Catching those fish intrigued me but in the Jacksonville area they were more of an offshore species and I did not have ready access to a boat in those days. In addition to being delectable table fare they were touted as strong, powerful fighters. That re(edited)tion was corroborated by a story I read one day in the “Florida Times Union” of a Coast Guard response to a small (small being a relative term) boat sinking incident. Apparently the vessel operator had a fifty-five gallon bait well aboard brim full of seawater and live bait. He green gaffed, meaning before the animal was exhausted, a large Cobia he’d caught onto the deck of his boat. The fish immediately set about destroying the bait well with its thrashing tail, which flooded the deck of the boat eventually causing it to sink. Talk about an expensive fishing trip.

By the mid 1980s I was fishing regularly in the Gulf of Mexico south of Tallahassee and the yearly spring cobia migration was a highly anticipated event. Though we rarely encountered the really huge cobia, knocking on a hundred pounds, that migrate eastward along the Alabama and Florida beaches, it was not uncommon to catch forty to sixty pound animals so we watched anxiously for the water temperature to reach seventy-two degrees, which seemed the magic number for their appearance. Their migration is spurred by water temperature; they prefer a range of sixty-eight to eight-six degrees.


Looking something like a mutant cross between a catfish and a shark, Cobia swim with their pectoral fins extended and are often mistaken for sharks when sighted from a top view by inexperienced anglers. Cobia are suckers for a chum slick and on several occasions my clients have excitedly proclaimed “Sharks!” when they were first spotted behind the boat. Cobia may be known by a greater variety of names, dependant upon where one lives and fishes, than almost any other saltwater fish. The most frequently used in the southern states, including Florida, are likely Ling, Lemonfish, and, possibly a little more obscure, Crab Crusher. Their pelagic range in the United States covers the coasts, inshore and offshore, of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Seaboard all the way to Nova Scotia. Cobia are found worldwide in sub-tropical waters and prefer to hang around structure such as channel markers, towers, pilings, and even floating debris. It is not uncommon to find a school of Cobia swimming along with whale sharks and other larger fish. They are true omnivores; consuming live bait finfish, dead cut bait, crabs, shrimp, eels, and a variety of artificial lures, seeming particularly fond of jigs with feather tails. They are very willing targets for the fly fisherman. Cobia are very curious fish that will swim right up a boat to investigate and have the re(edited)tion for seeming dimwitted due to their lack of wariness. Cobia must be thirty-three inches long, nose to fork of tail overall length, to keep in Florida. In 2001, as a reflection of concern for their vulnerability to over-fishing, Florida enacted a daily bag limit of one fish per angler or a maximum of six fish per vessel per day, whichever is less.


Upon moving to the lower Keys in the mid-1990s, I was delighted to learn Cobia also visited my new found home. They are present most abundantly in Florida Keys waters during the late fall to early spring time frame. Early after their arrival, Cobia are more often found around wrecks and structure on the Gulf of Mexico/Florida Bay side of the Keys and the back country channels and flats that are on the northern side of the Keys. As winter wanes and spring comes along, Cobia can be found mixed in with tailing Sailfish along color changes in the Atlantic, providing the opportunity to add a little dinner to what otherwise is a sport fishing expedition.


As wild fish populations diminish, the advent of aquaculture emerges ever more strongly to fulfill the demand for fish in our diets. Cobia appear to be a species that may lend itself well to aquaculture because of their fair growth rate and substantial yield at harvest. One Keys natural tourist attraction, the Aqua Ranch on Long Key at mile marker sixty-nine, is performing some evaluation of the economic viability of Cobia aquaculture. There the visitor can hand feed and even snorkel with large specimens of Cobia. Anglers interested in fishing for Cobia might want to make a stop there if they’ve never seen one in the wild to observe their future quarry.


By all reports, Cobia are showing well in the early part of their usual season in the Keys this year so visiting anglers should have an opportunity to tangle with one. Tackle up, get out there and do your Ling, er thing.