John (carolinaman) and I headed out this morning for Cobia. We used live croaker for about 30 min until all 10 of them met a fate with an unknown grim reaper. one after another they were reeled in with nothing but a head.

We then loaded up the spread with menhaden and wam, Cobia on, it was short one, back in he goes. Then within 5 min, we have another one, he airs out about 3 foot. After about a 15 min fight, I have my first cobia in the boat. This was my 3rd try at cobia,

After that we spent 5 hours reeling one cow nosed ray in after another.

Congrats on you Cobia. How big was it? Third try is not bad, i know some one that tried 8 years befoe they caught one.

Congrats on the cobes! Ya'll probably have some sore arms after all those rays too. Were you on this side or the other? thanks for the report.
DB

Great catch mate...where did you get your menhaden?

Great Job Eric,

Where did you guys try?

Tom

If anyone ever wants to test your knot tying ability......reel in about 5 cow nosed rays on the same rig....you basically get the chance to test a knot with virtually zero drag....frustration sets in, grab the spool, and utter several words not appropriate for church........after fighting one of those slobs for 20 minutes, one gets a little perturbed that you have cleared all your lines....... and it's damn hard to catch cobia with one line in the drink with a car hood attached to it....

Small cobia was 34", keeper was 43".....Great time as always Eric. As Eric mentioned, you couldn't keep a live croaker on the line for more than 5 minutes....but whatever it was, it didn't much care for hooks and croaker heads........

We got bait at OE2

Tom

We were at the south edge of the north fork of the 9ft shoal, Ocean side.

I would post photos, but the 7K limit on the board and the site I use to host my pictures really puts a damper in my ability to post this 8K pic.

I need to either learn to edit pictures more easy or change the setting on my new camera to take less quality pictures.

What about the rays? How big were they? What did they hit? I love me some kow nose! Congrats on the cobes gentlemen!

They were huge, john made sure I touched the leader before we released them.

Does touching the leader with a knife count for an official IGFA release.....?

Here is the cobia

Congrats on the cobes...as for the pictures, sign up for a free photobucket accout and use them. It resizes the pics automatically for you to post easily.

nicely done boyz!

we were out today, and skunked on the cobia. 9 foot shoals, 16 bouy, and plantation flats. awesome day, but no fish.

thus ends my chesapeake bay adventures!

bo

ps ... your mystery fish was most likely bluefish. they are out there by the zillions!

[quote=gordy,Jul 25 2007, 09:10 PM][quote=peejcj8,Jul 24 2007, 06:19 PM]I would post photos, but the 7K limit on the board and the site I use to host my pictures really puts a damper in my ability to post this 8K pic.

I need to either learn to edit pictures more easy or change the setting on my new camera to take less quality pictures.
[/quote]


Congrats on the cobes...as for the pictures, sign up for a free photobucket accout and use them. It resizes the pics automatically for you to post easily.

[/quote]


Thanks, Ive been using myfishingpictures.com. I did not know photobucket did that. Cool

Croaker Killer sounds like a school of taylors, I've lost more spot to those guys fishing over the tubes than I care to remember, I've had them come all the way to the top of the water chewing on them, leaving nothing but a head . . .

Perty work fellas! I tried it a few days back and couldn't get bait through the rays. Cranked on one that must have had a 7 foot wingspan - easily 80 plus pound - almost spooled me twice. On the way home we saw hundreds more and all I could think was how much fun it would be to have a tuna tower and a high powered rifle. I'm glad to hear you got to put a brown one in the boat!

Possible answer for your disappearing croakers, I am from Fl, and we have a HUGE problem with loosing baits like that. Just a head comes back, it always misses the hook, and if is the same thing here, then it is probably a couple of dolphin. (The Flipper kind, not dorado) They can hear the hook and tackle on their sonar and clean off all of our cigars, hardtails, menhaden, whatever. Never get hooked. Most times any other fish will get hooked, or bite the leader and run off a small chunk of line. Well, knowing this, next time adjust your rig. Add another small leader and impale a hook in the back of your bait near the tail. If it was dolphin screwing with you, they'll hear that hook and leave it be. Either way, let me know. -JBone

nah .... it was bluefish pure and simple. watch them work you will see. float a bait under a balloon, and see what happens. you can see them push the bait up to the surface and then just eat the hell out of them. we have added a trailer hook to the baits and caught the tailors that way.

bo

ps ... arrived in florida today ... all is good, put my feet in the gulf, and already want to go fish!

Way to go you two.

Great report.