Cobia Season in South Walton
March 28, 2011 by Larry Pentel
After a long run of calm seas we have gone into a more normal spring weather pattern of some swell at the beach. The surf yesterday was too much to try to launch.
Even though it was a weekend, nobody launched from Grayton and there were only a few Destin boats out cobia hunting. The cobia have popped up pretty good a couple days but are still hit and miss. The run should just get better as the water temps continue to climb.
I cancelled this mornings trip at 6AM due to a 4 foot swell that had the potential to get bigger, now at 8:30 the conditions don't look so bad- always better to err on the side of caution with the surf though. The guy who said you can't fight mother nature lied- You can always fight her but but you are probably gonna lose and it won't be pretty if boats are involved!
I got to run some trips on some calmer days this past week and we continue to do good bottom fishing. I ran one dedicated "big fish " bottom trip and the Jacks cooperated for us. We caught our 4 keeprs and released a few more pretty quick and had some time left to chase the Vermillion Snappers. They bit real well also and my anglers put a couple dozen in the box
Always nice to be able to hang big fish!
I ran a just cobia trip a couple days ago and we looked hard for 5 hours but got shut out- didn't even see a fish. two days prior I took some folks out on a short combo trip- bottom fish for a couple hours and then look for cobia for a couple and were fortunate enough to find 2 cobias and put a nice one in the box 'bout 50 pounds.
The first Pompano at Grayton was caught this past week by Niles King. I have heard of several others around but like the cobia they are still spotty. You never know when it will all come together but it will be soon!
I have lots of cobia trips booked for April this year and look forward to get to messing with a bunch of the brown backed critters. Capt Jody Wesly has allready set the bar , bringing in a 76# fish a couple days ago. He said it was the only fish they saw all day , got it after 4 Pm- . You just have to be there to make it happen!