Florida Cobia Fishing
Spring fishing here in the Tampa Bay, Florida area continues to produce outstanding results. I spent the morning Sunday at the Merry Pier in St. Pete Beach, targeting grouper on the incoming tide. They were aggressively hitting whole frozen sardines, and I landed around a dozen, up to 20″:
There were a few mackerel around, and even a decent flounder. But the big fish of the day was a 40″ cobia that nailed a Spanish Sardine. With fairly light spinning tackle, and 20 lb. test SpiderWire, it was a fun fight. Thankfully, Cap’t Joe was on the pier, and had a gaff handy- this fish wouldn’t fit in the net! It’s the first legal cobia that I’ve caught on the pier. Fresh grilled cobia steaks tonight!
I spent Friday and Saturday at the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life event on the beach behind Sloppy Joe’s in Treasure Island. Our Team, Digital Eel (a Tampa web design company), has raised over $10,000 to date for this worthy cause.
Cap’t Joe preparing to fillet the catch of the day:
April 27th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Steve, looks like you had yourself a mighty fine time at the pier. Man I can’t wait to get down there in June. Those Cobia look very similar to a channel catfish, probably don’t taste the same though. Glad to see that fish cleaning table on the pier cause I’m going to need it. I wished like hell I was 100 pound blond in a bikini so that maybe I could persuade Cap’t Joe to take me on a expedition to some fishing grounds somewhere, but I ain’t so I’ll just stay on the Merry Pier. At least at Merry Pier it seems like you can catch about anything, unlike pier fishing in the midwest were you are limited on your catch, unless you have dynamite.
May 10th, 2009 at 3:27 am
that is a great catch, and someday i’ll just like you, even beat you.. 🙂