CHUM!!! CHUM!!! CHUM!!! then take your pick of which one you want. Anchor up current from the nearshore in the first week of May and it will be on.
.
NMFS = No More Fishing Season
“Back home we got a taxidermy man. He gonna have a heart attack when he see what I brung him”
quote:
Originally posted by sellsfishCHUM!!! CHUM!!! CHUM!!! then take your pick of which one you want. Anchor up current from the nearshore in the first week of May and it will be on.
.
NMFS = No More Fishing Season
“Back home we got a taxidermy man. He gonna have a heart attack when he see what I brung him”
Sells, we too Chum, but dang if it doesn’t bring in the sharks!
< Evil is simply the absence of God >
Ain’t that the truth!
Capt. Larry Teuton
Cracker Built Custom Boats
Small craft surveying and repair
Ive read this entire thread and I have seen one mention of Manta Rays. Do they not come this far north?
Whatever you do, don’t throw a live blue crab to one hanging around a buoy, it will not work.
quote:
Originally posted by SeaAnchorIve read this entire thread and I have seen one mention of Manta Rays. Do they not come this far north?
Not sure why you would wonder about no one mentioning manta rays on a cobia thread? I’ve heard some people I’d trust say we have them around, but I’ve only seen them in the Bahama’s. That’s not too far away.
< Evil is simply the absence of God >
Cobia are known to hang out around rays down south… that’s why he said that. I believe
Yes, that is why I referenced them. In Florida, we catch them on the Rays and I was wondering if they made it this far up.
Don’t know about mantas but I have seen some big cow nosed rays around here.
since this thread seems already sufficiently hijacked on the ray front…
I’m not an expert but researched this last year after hooking up with a massive ray. What I learned: Cobia will sit under a school of mantas, travelling with them and relating to them like any surface structure. They will also sit below cownose, not just for structure, but also eating them. The cobia/cownose thing apparently goes on up through Virginia. The cobia/manta -maybe maybe not. SC is the furthest north reported sighting of mantas so probably too rare to look for for the purposes of sighting cobia as they do in Florida. I didn’t to a great job of keeping a fishing log last year but probably caught 50 cownose last year in April and May, and not a single one after that. I know what they look like -half the ones hooked have friends school with them right to the boat. All were caught with a 1/4 to whole split crab on the bottom. In late August (long after the cownose seemed gone), I hooked a massive ray that took an hour to get to the boat where it finally broke a 40 pound rod -between the reel seat and the first guide. I won’t subject myself to the abuse that would follow on this site for a size estimate. I’ll defer to any more experienced members about whether mantas are here or what I caught, but it wasn’t cownose.
They follow in large rays up in North Carolina, you can see them in the spring at Bogue Inlet pier. I am not sure what sort of ray it is, but they are enormous. You can see their huge rounded shadows when the water is clear, and I’ve seen small cobia caught on bucktails and got-chas by spanish fishermen out there.
I’ve seen two mantas jump in st Helena sound. And have seen several swimming offshore.
So two things…1. Schools of Cobia at the channel markers…I have pulled a number of cobes off them in the summer but never seen more than two at any of them. More often than not the fish stacked up like firewood at those buoys are barracuda and the only way I have been able to get them to bite is to chum them into a feeding frenzy with live menhaden and then slip a king mackerel rig in the mix. They are fun on light tackle.
2. If you want to see cobia and rays hanging together in our area check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFrEGnPoF74
for some footage of cobia and rough tail rays at Charleston 60 last fall. Hard to target from the surface because of the visibility but they are there.
26’ Glacier Bay
Mistress
Chumming works pretty well. Buoys or anything floating in the water. I personally sight fish for them. You see all manner of towers on boats up here with people looking for them. A lot of pier guys get them up here in the Che’s. Bay as well. Cobra usually show up in VA around late May early June.
Thanks, Magezzi. Has anyone on here ever hooked a rough tail ray?
I worked on the shrimp boat Gulf Dawn out of Rockville many years ago,
we pulled up many manta rays… one so large it looked more like it belonged in a comic book, wings went over both sides of the boat…
Capt. Mike hooked him on the tail with a rope and I hit the winch, with his tail nearly hitting the top of the outrigger we pushed it with a broom several times until it swayed over the side n dropped the rope!
never seen anything like that since…
Sea Hunt Triton 177
115 Yamaha
quote:
Originally posted by SeaAnchorIve read this entire thread and I have seen one mention of Manta Rays. Do they not come this far north?
They do but the water is so dirty you can’t see them swimming on the bottom in 30 to 40ft of water off CHS. its not like Florida where you can run the beach and find them.
I’ve seen Manta Rays out in the ocean but not nearshore