we arrived friday morning and put in in St Andrews West Bay per the usual
we were not alone, already cobia madness had set in the locals and closer-than-us's and anyone else with a jonboat and homemade flybridge
there were at least 5 boats in line to launch with others arriving every minute
we chose the reverse route (out st andrews pass, then up to destin pass, then back through the canal) and started about 9am
the bay water was a little cloudy and still cold as hell, but there were a few bait balls here and there and i was able to net 6 little fishies and put out two trolling lines and one with the small doa crab in clear with red
we got a smallish redfish about 11am on the doa crab just as we came into the pass at st andrews
as soon as we were past the jetties and in the ocean we could see the hundreds of boats that were puffing along the shoreline just off the sandbar with one to look and one to throw and one to hand up beer
we saw the first cobia pack about 1pm near the pcb volcano alvins and got one 47" cobia right thereafter, gaffing and dropping him into directly into the big white empty igloo cooler and taking turns driving and sitting on it until he quit bouncing which was an awful long time when you're holding onto the handles thinking about how thin that plastic is
he finally quieted down and i covered him with ice from the other cooler and some saltwater - it took about eight buckets to cover it so he was a lot of fish, but once cleaned he didn't quite fill up the little deep freezer
the packs of approximately 40 cobia per pack were pretty thick, but they were eating live squid and the ocean was absolutely chock full of squid balls and the cobia were apparently following them
there were so many idiots trying to follow the dancing cobia who were following the dancing squid that lines were getting notted together and boats were almost hitting each other on a regular basis
we decided to depart before were departed or at least snagged with one of the many misthrown 4 oz fake orange squid cobia rigs that somebody somewhere was obviously making a bundle on
we went offshore after snapper and trigger fish since we were already in the ocean - it was really funny watching the onshore antics once we got out of the madhouse and joined the circle jerkers on the reefs
the local current was to running hard east to west which just didn't feel right going clockwise and the wind was from the south blowing hard and cold, so we made it only about 5 times around the circle then made straight for destin pass about 6pm
almost as soon as we were out of the circle we caught a monster black grouper who was promply cleaned and a generous portion given to the grill along with some yellow onion halfs and new potatoes wrapped in foil
there were some flippers playing tag outside the pass and it looked like a quiet night except for the wind, so we stayed outside and anchored up just north of the metal pile just south and west of the sea bouy off Destin pass
someone was shooting fireworks on the darkest part of the beach but they weren't the pretty kind
the cool air was magnificent so i put on a jacket and sat on the stern and watched the jets going around and around and around over the airfield and fished with some dead frozen shrimp and caught a nice red snapper for the freezer up here
slept in til late morning the next day only finally getting up when the inverter's battery alarm went off but stayed anchored up outside just as long as possible totally enjoying the lovely long swells and the cool breeze coming through the galley windows
with a marvelous breakfast of french toast and bagels and cream cheese and that wonderful cheap food club coffee, it was time to say goodbye before the spell was broken, so i pulled up the anchor and we went in via Destin pass and just skirting along the forbidden zone back eastward to catch the intracoastal thus heading back down the canal to the trailer
lots of folks were fishing on the banks, but i couldn't see what they were catching if anything
caught one drum waiting forever to pull the boat out - saw them coming by and grabbed the shrimp and rod quick!
finally loaded up and headed back home yesterday afternoon - not bad at all - if i can ever afford to fill this thing up with gas again we'll see you out there
and that, class, was my cobia trip (bow)
