How to Sight-Fish for Cobia
Sight-fishing for cobia is a popular way to target them, but there are other methods worth experimenting with.
Cobia’s brute strength, dogged fighting style and delicious flavor makes them a top target of coastal anglers.
Sight-fishing for cobia is a popular way to target them, but there are other methods worth experimenting with.
It’s not often that an angler’s first encounter with a species of fish is a record!
It took an epic 30-minute battle to boat the 46-pound cobia and win a June 25 tournament.
The Northeast has some new species, and anglers had best learn tricks to catch them.
A pelagic species most often found in open, warm-temperate to tropical waters of the western and eastern Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific coast of Japan, cobia make long seasonal migrations. Many winter in the Gulf of Mexico and travel up the eastern seabord, as far as Massachusetts, for the summer.
They have a life span of 15 years or more, and grow as long as 78 inches and as heavy as 172 pounds. Except for their large, offshore spawning aggregations from April to September, cobia are usually solitary, but sometimes gather at certain reefs, wrecks, or buoys, or enter estuaries and patrol sandbars and mangrove shorelines in search of prey.
Known also as ling or lemonfish, cobia are scavengers known to follow sharks, turtles, and rays. They show a predilection for eels, but feed primarily on crabs, squid, and a variety of baitfish. Very curious by nature, cobia frequently show little fear of boats. Their brute strength, dogged fighting style and delicious flavor makes them a top target of coastal anglers.
Here are the top live baits for cobia fising.
The rich flavor of cobia is nicely complemented by the sweetness of the clam vinaigrette.
Fish a wealth of offshore species, year round
with sweet potato and maple syrup puree
Proven Strategy For Trophy Gulf Coast Ling
As the seasons change, get ready for the cobia annual migration off South Florida.