Cobia Fishing NC Style.......

[Ice Cream Man]

Here are some reports for a 1 day recent trip from 3 different boats ...........
Sadly that day our crew when North for Yellow Fin - when we should have gone East.......
We did manage 1 gaffer & 4 bailers without the use of any eyes - our sonar when out..........
It's a little long but worth reading........Enjoy..........ICM

Post 1........
Jigged today with:

Chip from Tex's Tackle
Stormtrooper,
Chip's dad and brother.
We had a really good day,we went looking for big A.J.'s and caught a few decent one's but other fish started to get in our way. On Chip's first drop he bagged a 42lb. Gag, then we caught a few nice A.J.'s,then the Cobia got in the way. We caught 10 Cobia from 15 to 60lbs. We had multiple hook-up's on cobia several time's. Stormtrooper also caught a very nice African Pompano. It was literally every drop was a hook-up.We caught so many fish that I quit jigging.
Part of the reason this trip was so good was that it was early March,the sea's were 1 to 2 foot, we had really good people on board,excellent vibe's and we did not get beat to Death or Wet.Wish every day fishing was like today!!!! David

I 'm still pumped from that trip.Chip starts the day with a monster gag,i finally get my AP,Dave nails some big jacks and cobia,just an unreal day.As for tha spinning reel question those are STELLA 20000 with 500yd's of PE6 Diawa Boat Braid.Back to the fishing it was ridiculous BIG AJ'S on jigs and topwaters(they were destroying poppers right next to the boat) Zack gets a white trevally on the jig,beatiful fish by the way,but the Cobia bite was just unreal,and the best part it was all on jigs.

We headed out yesterday with hope of black and yellow gold. We had tuna on the mind but it wasnt meant to be. Started the day out with 40lb gag grouper on the first drop. What a way to start the day. And a bunch of AJs most of em fat and chunky beating the 60 lb mark. We got a call from Rick on the radio "If you want topwater AJs come on over." We made the short jaunt to visit Rick and first cast with a popper WHAM 40+ pounder on a popper. Not bad for the first cast. That continued for a couple hours with about a dozen on poppers and who knows how many jigging. Most fish were in the 40-50 pound range and they were more than willing to eat a popper or anything else you put in front of their face. THis spot also yielded three bonus cobia around 40 pounds. A first for me and we were beginning to wonder how the day could get any better. Made one more move for the day and all hell broke lose. The cobia must have been laying on top of each other because in the next hour we landed 8 more cobia up to 55 pounds and a ton of AJs up to about 80-90 pounds. We had an awesome day with awesome company. The ocean was flat all day and the fish were chewing. Its hard to beat that. Come get some! CHeers!

All fish were caught jigging and if you don't have the Bluewater Candy roscoe jigget some because they are hot! Every cobia came on the Roscoe.


Post 2.....
Headed about 60 miles out of Masonboro inlet thursday morning at 5:30 am. We were greeted by little wind and almost flat seas so we punched it and got to the spot by about 7. As soon as we found the 1st ledge it was on, nice AJ's on every drop, even a couple of blackfin tuna as well. The big sharks were thick out there as well, many an AJ got eaten on the way up. about 1pm we decided to head north a few miles and when we got up there, it was on again. 2 cobia, countless AJ's, a couple jacks and even a coronet fish. there were 3 boats at the last spot and we were all wearing the fish slap out.


Post 3..........
The Break 62 - 65 nautical miles offshore were "lit up" with fish. Bottom fishing was slow but there were plenty of very large sharks (sand tigers & bull sharks), amber jack, almaco jacks, cobia and African pompano. We did manage to catch one very large gag grouper (41" long). Water temperature was 66 degrees, seas were flat. All fish were caught on Blue Water Candy's Roscoe jig.

That area was alive. We saw 3 or 4 big turtles and the sonar screen was just plan LIT UP with fish all up and down the water column. We caught 3 tiger sharks all weighing in the 250 plus range, man what a mouth full of teeth, mean and ugly! And what a work out on a jigging set-up. Soon Rick and I both hooked up with cobia, Jodie caught another and then I landed a 55 pounder. We ended up with our limit of 8 for the day! Some friends in another boat fishing near us with Roscoes also caught their limit. It seems the cobia really liked the Roscoe jigs.

[captainmark]

Billy, Next flat day let's bomb out there and try our new tackle! Thanks for posting. You know how we did at Steeples on Thursday, just wasn't meant to be!