Cobia and Barracuda in the Gulf by Basil Dubrosky

Posted on May 5, 2017 by VHFC

On May 3, I left the dock at 7 AM and headed to a man-made reef that was located about 13 miles into the Gulf. We marked structure on the reef and hooked up with the reef anchor. Very few people grapple the structure here but my experience fishing NJ wrecks came in handy. As soon as the anchor caught we saw 2 big cobia cruising around the boat. We threw everything at these fish and after I handed my buddy Ray a pin fish that I caught on a sabiki rig he connected on the live lined bait. The fish fought hard for about 15 minutes and we even had to untangle the line from the marker float. I estimate the fish at 20-25 pounds with a large head and fins. We put the fish in the box and started fishing for the second fish. We hooked the second fish twice but he escaped both times. The bottom fishing was slow but I got taken into structure and cut off twice. Before we departed, 2 loggerhead turtles popped up near the boat to investigate our float. They are huge and a beautiful sight.
On the way home we stopped at a 6 mile reef and hooked up with the grapple. The water was full of bait and barracuda. Although I caught live bait and a small bluefish on my sabiki rig, we could not catch the cuda nor any bottom fish. Before we departed I put on 2 cuda tubes (bright colored surgical rubber tubing with wire dropping 2 trebles). On the first pass over the reef a cuda came clear out of the water and missed the tube. On the second trolling pass we hooked up with a nice barracuda. We headed for home and gave the cuda to a neighbor who likes to eat them and we divided up the cobia. We had some cobia for dinner and it was tender and tasty.

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