What is the best bait for Cobia besides live eels? I have only done it once a few years back and caught one on a finger mullet, might give it a try again soon. Are menhaden and mullet fine or is there something better?
from what I have seen menhaden work well (the larger the better), blue runners and small spanish.
“My fish served a whole lunchon. Your fish look like a munchkin”
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Crabs work well and live mullet to add to the list. They are really scavengers and opportunistic feeders. They can also behave really strange especially offshore. Had one pick up a mullet sideways in his mouth and swim around the boat with head hanging out one side and tail out the other and then just spit it out and swim off. Never touched the hook.
I only use green herring (greenies)caught on sabiki rig or menhaden fished on the bottom or under a float. I don’t use artificials,but hear white bucktails are favored.
if you can name it a cobia will eat it. seriously they will eat anything or they will eat nothing.
green grass and high tides forever
jhp----- Murrells Inlet
“they will eat anything or they will eat nothing”
That is what my experience has shown as well
I have never tried eels, but having menhaden and greenies out side by side for me they have always picked up the haden.
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quote:
Originally posted by tideline_twoif you can name it a cobia will eat it. seriously they will eat anything or they will eat nothing.
green grass and high tides forever
jhp----- Murrells Inlet
very true.
We had a momma tied off the back of the boat and several smaller males came up. I threw a couple of chicken wings and what do you know… they ate a couple. Be in the right place at the right time and they will eat anything. Caught a 44" momma using a skate wing once. Still like eels if I’m being serious for them and don’t mind the shark intrussions.
< Evil is simply the absence of God >
caught them in beaufort on eels,cut bait,live herring and squid purchased from wal mart.
22’ Mckee Craft
Baloons. And what Goldfinger said. Stinger rig.
I have seen Jose Wejebe on TV use a big white or chartreuse bucktail with a big grub on it, so I am going to try a big bucktail with a piece of a Gulp eel on it; going to soak the bucktail in that Gulp juice, too. (You know; that stuff that smells like a cheap date…
) BTW, that has worked for big stripers in the Chesapeake Bay, too.
And when nothing else works, a Jumbo “peeled” Skrimp.
Nephew in Fla slow trolls stretch’s for them.Red and white.Hit the wreck stop let the stretch float up and take off again.They will tear it up.
Stonoman
I’ve been after em for 15 years on all the artifical reefs out to 60’, caught a few on flutter head bucktail with green worm, and after that its all what was said above, smetimes they’ll eat anything other times I’ve tried 2&3 different live baits, any and all artificals and the guy in the boat next to me might catch one fishing with dead shrimp for bottom fish. I guess thats why its called fishing!
You can’t catch fish on a dry line
you never said where you were fishing. I do see the fish in the broad being a little less picky than their open ocean crusing faminly members.
live greenies on the bottom just behind the chum bag is my go to.
We came up on an old man fishing by himself the other day and he was hooked up, we idled to him and offered assistance. He glady accepted our help and we cleared lines, moved rods and got his cooler ready for the fish when we saw that it was a legal fish. When the fish came to the boat we saw that he was fishing with whiting…said thats all he ever used. go figure.
our good deed paid off 20 minutes later.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeyzKirNBo8&feature=share
When at the cans and crusing our artificial structure the Hogy eels work well. Any of the local shops should now carry them. Capt Tucker Blythe really turned me onto those hogy baits. It’s amazing how wild those cobia get when one is put in front of them.
So I reckon, after writing all this…the saying that they’re eat everything or nothing is about as true as it gets.
good luck.
xHCFCx
Fish are too valuable to be caught only once.