Rat Reds to Ling on a Guess (Florida Cobia)

Red rat tides as the birds flew by, in search of a feisty fishy dinner, as we scooted around the point coming out of Gasparilla boat ramp, just this side of the causeway to Boca Grande. All through out Boca Grand Channel up through the old docks, great schools of scaled sardines, greenbacks to glass minnows boiled the greenish blue waters with a magnitude of birds dropping from above. Osprey, hawks, Bald Eagles, the Floridian Air Brigade ( Pelicans in dive bomb formation), all in picking meals to treats to eat; only thing missing was the big fish below, they either were on a diet or not there at all!

We tried shrimp under a cork and fed the cats. Switched to a soft jerk bait, in a creme color with an 1/16 ounce Eagle Claw worm hook, for giggles, cast it out and ever so lightly twitched it on the count of three on every drop and catching specks like bees to honey. All fell in the range of 14 to 14 1/2 inches but was a lot of fun. Just before dark, we decided, again to mix it up and threw out floating stick baits by Bass Pro, XLT series and trolled them behind the canoe on speed three of my Motor Guide, 30 pound thrust trolling motor, as the sun was beginning to get a bit lower in the sky and we had miles to go, to get back to the ramp, before dark.

Each time we chunked out the baits, they were slammed by Under-slot Reds in the 15 inch class. Edwin had two break-off, probably because he was angling without a leader and fishing light...six pound test, duh, but the fights to leaps were spectacularly expensive in loosing lures on almost every cast to a fish. I went back to my original set up only this time, I figured as long as we are playing with Bass lures, why not skip a 6 inch Zoom green lizard across the top as we needed to hook it up and get it in. Wham, bam, we saw the fish for a split second before it just about spooled my reel, as we turned in chase. This guy was swimming faster and in more direction than I could do, to keep up with it. As it took us in to the shallows, the props jammed up, rod bent and that really sweet Cobia just smiled to “POP” and swam away.

Think I'll try me some more lizards next time, I mean, maybe it looks like an eel to them Ling. I do not know but I know what I'm fishing with later this week; care to guess? “FISH ON!”