Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
We pulled up on the edge of the shoal and dropped anchor. Unfortunately I had miscalculated the current and before I knew it the anchor line slipped under the hull and got hung on the rudder. It was only midmorning but already it was in the mid 80’s and expected to get even hotter. Looking for a way to cool-off, my mate said he’d be happy to go under the boat and clear the line. I gave him the “OK” and in a flash he was over the side and in just a few seconds I could see the line coming out from under the boat. He had accomplished his mission, but when he came out from under the boat he was like a penguin launching up onto an ice flow. He came out of the water so fast that his shorts were half way down to his knees and I swear it was like he just suddenly materialized on deck!
Wide-eyed and visibly shaken all he could say was “sharks everywhere!” Which had us all looking over the side wondering “where?’ Then someone shouted “look there!” And we all looked over to see a group of about ten 4-foot long brown fish swimming just a few yards off the starboard side. I took one look at the fish, then turned to my mate and barked, “Those aren’t sharks they’re cobia, so snap out of it and get some baits in the water – quick!”
We just happened to have a livewell full of live bunker and spot which were promptly fired out at the fish that were just milling about beside the boat. Normally cobia are reluctant to take any bait or offering you put in front of them, but that morning they where hungry and ate without hesitation. Over the next 15-minutes we managed to land six of the 20-35 pound bruisers. It’s just as well that incident occurred before video cameras became so commonplace and YouTube gave us a way to broadcast to the world, because if anyone else had a chance to see the sheer mayhem that took place on deck during that 15-minutes, or the way the cockpit of my boat was transformed into something that looked like the bloodiest horror movie you could ever imagine, I’d be hard pressed to find anyone willing to step aboard my boat for a fishing trip ever again!
That little episode occurred about 20-years ago up on Fenwick Shoal, but it remains the most cobia we’ve ever caught on a single trip. Cobia just don’t come that easy, they usually just make an appearance and stay only long enough for those aboard to figure out that they “aren’t sharks” and then just fade away! However, if the crew is up on their cobia tactics and have baits, lures and rigs all made-up, on the rods, and ready for action, they “might” have a chance at hooking and landing one of these frustratingly finicky fish.
I guess that since we’ve had our share of (limited) success with cobia off Ocean City, I’m often asked by other local fishermen what they need to do to catch one for themselves. I’ve even had clients try to book my boat to go “cobia fishing.” However, as much as I’d like to say that I know secret tactics that have allowed us to hook and land so many cobia over the years, the bottom-line is that around here, these fish just don’t show up consistently enough that you can really go out and target them with any measure of success, such as can be done in more southern latitudes. The key to getting cobia off Ocean City is to fish the nearshore waters inside of the 20-fathom line a lot, and always be prepared to quickly put a decent bait or lure in front of a cobia when one or more decides to pay you a visit.
Since we’re sharking the nearshore waters almost every fishable day from July 1st until the end of September, we’re lucky to have the “fish a lot” part of the equation covered. But even those who can only fish once or twice a month, and choose to wreck or flounder fish, could be at the right place at the right time and get a shot, so it always pays to be ready. Sometimes cobia will arrive at a boat and stay for hours, but often they appear and are gone in less than a minute, so anglers need to act quickly or the opportunity will be lost. “Being ready” means having something rigged that can be tossed to the face of a cobia literally within 30-seconds of first seeing it, so that pretty much means having a dedicated rod (or rods) always set up for cobia that “probably” will not show up anyway. Then, you just go ahead and do whatever other kind of fishing you planned on doing and if old Mr. Coby shows up you drop what you’ve doing and have at him!
So what should you have on your line? Good question, because they’ll eat just about everything but often won’t eat anything. Around the planet, cobia have been caught on crabs, shrimp, cut bait, live bait and every kind of artificial lure you can imagine. I can only tell you that off Delmarva we’ve caught them on live spot, eels, bunker and herring, cut bluefish, mackerel and tuna. We’ve also hooked them on surface poppers, bucktails, Storm Lures and once I was lucky enough to catch one on a Clouser fly. From July through September we keep two 20-pound test spinning rods rigged for cobia at all times. One has a circle hook with 30# fluorocarbon leader for live bait and the other has some sort of jig, such as a bucktail or Storm lure on it. A third spinner is kept ready, but only has a snap swivel on the line so we can quickly put whatever we want on it as needed.
One thing to keep in mind is that when cobia show up anglers are usually trying to hook them right under or beside the boat with less than 20-feet of line off the rod tip. That’s why one of our rods is always rigged with a jig rather than some other sort of lure that needs to be cast and retrieved to properly work. If a cobia moves away from the boat, we can always cast the jig out to them, but you can’t jig a crank type lure.
The final thing anglers need if they want to catch cobia is “persistence.” Every summer we see FAR more cobia than we ever hook, but we keep our tackle ready just the same and never give up trying to get them to bite, even when it seems like all they are doing is teasing us. We’ve had fish swim around the boat for hours that just wouldn’t touch anything we put in front of them, and then all of a sudden slurp down an offering that was refused when they first showed up. You’ve got to keep working them and working them if you’re ever going to catch them! And if everything about cobia wasn’t humbling enough, the killer is that every season, some kid fishing for spot off a dock or a guy on the beach trying for kingfish will show up in the paper after catching a beautiful cobia totally by accident. Challenging, humbling, frustrating, you’ve got to love those cobia!
Captain Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.
