Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Cobia Fortune

We have had good cobia fortune in my boat this year but today might take the cake.  It wasn't the largest cobia of the year and it wasn't unique for the fact that the angler in my boat had never caught one, in fact he is the 5th one I have had this year that has lost his 'Cobia on the Fly' virginity.  Instead, fortune came because of a different fish and a litter bug.

Chuck and I started the day at 845 this morning with five fly rods in the boat. We bought some time until the tide would be low enough to sight cast by blind casting with an LC shrimp, thank you John Holbrook for that fly. We hooked a nice red that ate as it came to the boat, making it difficult to get a good hook set. After a short time of pulling off line from the reel, the fish came unglued. A few minutes later we hooked into a doormat of a flounder that if he had been a buzz saw would have separated the boat right at the console as he darted under and out the other side. Though he ripped some fly line from the reel, he too came unglued.
In the next two locations we found no shortage of reds…hundreds of them. We changed flies twice but never made one eat. So I said lets pull out the 10wt and see if we can find a Cobia. I was explaining what we would be looking for and on cue one came up as an example; it was pushing due west across the river. I reached over Chuck’s shoulder to point out the wake but as soon as we pulled closer the fish disappeared. Again a push, and again it disappeared. The third time this happened we moved a little closer to where the push was and momentarily got a fairly close look at a 25 plus pound Cobia but didn’t get a real good shot at it. The next fish cruising wouldn’t let us get close before it would go down so we moved on. For the next 45 minutes we saw a few sheepshead cruising, some bait and as always hundreds of jelly balls but no sign of a brown fish. Chuck said, “let’s go fish for some reds again, we might spend an hour looking for a Cobia and when we find it I might not capitalize.”
“Alright” I replied. Putting the 10 weight away we headed off to another flat. After getting up some speed I looked over to the right at a black bucket floating upside down bobbing in the subtle slick waves. I spun the boat and said, “Triple Tail.”
“You see one?” Chuck asked.
“Not a Cobia, a triple tail right with that bucket.”
I pulled the eight weight out with a redfish toad, a good triple tail fly, and identified the triple tail to Chuck. He put his first cast a little wide right and it wasn’t long before the triple tail caught sight of the boat and retreated under the bucket. At that point I instructed Chuck to cast past the bucket and let the fly sink a bit before stripping it back, hoping the hidden fish would dart out and grab it.  As Chuck cast, I glanced up river seeing what appeared to be a kamikaze fish pushing right toward us. I reached for the 10 weight as I said, “There is a Cobia coming!” Closing fast, the cobia moved just a little left of center, so Chuck and I switched rods. “You see it?” I asked.
Chuck replied, “Yeah I see it,” which was another way of saying, “what do you want me to do?” The fish sunk and disappeared.
“Put it to left of where he just was and strip.”
I took a quick look back to the bucket to see if the triple tail was still there. He was, and was zoned in on the toad as it was sinking. I looked back to Chuck’s fly just as the cobia lifted out of the depth pushing a wake that screamed, “here I come!” The fish punished the fly and Chuck didn’t hesitate to give the most successful strip strike of the day. I removed the redfish toad from the water and away from the triple tail to say thanks for making us stop the boat. No bucket equals no triple tail and no triple tail most likely means I never would have seen that cobia.

An early statement from Chuck said, “it appears they fight a little sluggish.” The just legal fish quickly changed Chuck’s opinion on that, and was followed with him making statements such as “we don’t have fish that can bend a rod like this at home...unless I am using my 3 weight.”
We got him in, took some photos and then lipped the fish with a boga next to the boat as it idled along until he was strong enough to swim away on his own.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

01.07.12

I got a phone call Thursday evening from a client of mine who wanted to take advantage of the 5 to 10 mph forecast for today. The forecast yeilded exactly those conditions. He was coming from Savannah so we planned to meet on the Savannah side of Beaufort to fish from Chechesse River landing.

The fish seemed to be a little more spooky today but we were able to pull a pair of 24" fish from two different schools. Both fish were caught on an LC Shrimp and my clients 8 wt. Loomis GLX.

Quote from the day:"I am a little unhappy that that fish ate...I was having such a great time watching all those fish swim around." This was said after we hooked the first fish out of a school of a hundred plus reds in the winter crystal clear water.

Friday, January 6, 2012

01.06.11

In the past I have only posted blogs that were more telling of what I have learned on the water, experiances, or instructional type posts. This year I am going to do some of those but I also want to give a better understanding of day to day how the fishing is. So I am going to write a blog, as often as I can, about each day we fish. Good or bad.Today was a good day to start. Tim O'Leary, Fishing Manager of the Orvis Outlet store in Manchester, VT was here in Hilton Head for a visit and wanted to get out and fish one day. We looked at Wednesday which started at a temperture of 24 degrees and desided that the 5 to 10 mph winds out of the west on a warmer Friday would make things much more enjoyable.

We left the landing at 9:30 and headed out to go find Tim's first redfish ever. After poling most of the first flat we had a dolphin come crusing down the outside edge and cut infront of us about 50 yards down the flat. I told Tim that most likely the fish were right where that dolphin was heading in and he will turn them down here toward us. Sure enough that dolphin made me look really good! We pulled one out of the school then and found them a second time 100 yards behind us and pulled one more out.

We went to two more spots and pulled out two in the first spot and found limited fish in the second with no hookups there.

Final count was 1 fish around 19inches, 2 just shy of 24inches, and one nice 27inch fish, all caught on John Holbrook's LC Shrimp pattern with an 8wt. Helios.

Things I was reminded of during the trip were that if you are not actively catching a fish then you should always have more than enough line stripped off the reel to be able to cast immediately and that winter reds will often test your patients in your search because they are in such tight schools.

One thing I learned is that if there is a spot you have a gut feeling is holding fish before poling to far with a blind spot from the sun you should zig zag the boat to see into that blind spot.

All and all a great day and it was very nice to see someone get their first redfish(or 4) on the fly.