Kings, Cobia & Tripletail, Destination: Venice Florida

Looking to the diving birds at the front of the “T” at the end of the pier at Sharky’s in Venice, Florida, one will see anglers Trollying for big Kings and landing quite a few. When trolling across the front of the “T” be sure and stay at least 300 feet in front of the pier, 100 yards, for your safety and it is a law through a Venice City Ordinance to which the Marine patrol, Sherriff or Police will ticket. Cobia are a migrating right along side the smokers as of now and are seen more often than not in the Venice Pier area for there are a number of crab pods dropped out in pursuit of those prestigious stone crab claws. Pods and baits have leached the waters with fish oils for a couple of weeks now acting as a big box of chum. The best bets for Cobia are as the sun rises over the Venice reef to the north of the pier at about a quarter of a mile and a few hundred yards off the beach. Look for the pods and the Tripletail along with Cobia circling among the pods. Sight casting for Cobia is a real treat as you will actually see the bite occur as you make the strike and reel’er in! That sight-casting challenge is great as you pass each crab pod buoy for that is where you will find the Tripletail, in the shady side. Throttling down and approaching from the opposite side of the fish, pulling parallel in a drift, cast your live shrimp or small white bait under a float towards the drift side of the pod float. As your bait drifts by, wham, bam, “FISH ON!” ©