Cobias & Kings

The Cobia run is in full swing. After a couple of slow years this year is turning into a pretty good season. It's big game fishin' so there are still a few days when it doesn't all come together, but those days are way fewer than the days it works this year! The Kings have also started to show up along with a few Cigar Minnows and I saw the first big school of Jacks (Crevalle) this morning that I have seen this year.

With everything else showing up so late I have high hopes that the Cobia run is going to continue on into May for quite a while. Today was the first "wad" of Cobia I have seen (five) and three of 'em were still good size fish. I think we still have the big push of "clones" to look forward to.

Here's a few pics from the past 10 days.
 

My ever faithful mascot - "Big Bird" - faithful as long as the live well is full anyway!
 

These folks have been fishing with me for years. Always a great trip when everybody gets to catch a big one.

These guys jumped on a short afternoon trip to bottom fish.. and caught a pile of Vermillions still in the box.
 

Lady's trip. These gals took an afternoon trip and had a blast. On the way in one of 'em asked me how good a catch was this? I asked if she had a big time - when she answered a big "YES", I said it was a great catch. She then turned to her buddies and said "Capt. just told me we missed too many of those bites".

We pulled this catch off on a cloudy, howling NE wind day. I love it when a plan comes together!

Took my daughter and a couple beach locals out for two hours Sunday afternoon when I was done with my charter. Look what she found!

This was a bottom trip. I saw the Cobia on the surface on a piece of structure while catching bait, right before I picked up my folks. As soon as they got on the boat, I told 'em we were gonna go see if he was still there. Not only there, but hungry too!

Today's Board -- We saw seven, hooked four ( pulled the hook on a 35#) and landed three. The third was a 1/4 inch short so he got to swim off!

As long as the weather cooperates the fishing should just get better and better over the next several weeks, and we now have a 44-day Red Snapper season (in state waters) this year. The states of Florida, Louisianna and Texas all told the Feds that they didn't have a clue as to what was happening with Snapper and set their own seasons.

The Feds of course got peeved and shortened their season WAY down in retaliation but... it is great to see somebody besides us folks on the water every day acknowledge that Federal Fishery management has NOTHING to do with the fish any more, just politics.

Get out there and catch something!