Last week I had the opportunity to head to Beaufort for a couple days and try for a Cobia in the Broad River. It had been a couple of years since I had targeted these fish in Beaufort and I was very excited about the trip. We were greeted with torrential rains on the drive down on Wednesday as a moderately strong low pressure system moved through the area. hursday morning brought clear skies, and 10 to 15 knot northeast winds as high pressure built back in. With the rapid change in pressure, relatively big spring tides, and the influence of the fresh water from the heavy rains all of us were a little concerned with the fishs appetite, but we were there to fish and would not let the elements influence our goal of putting a nice Cobia in the boat.
The rain, tides, and wind muddied the water and ruled out our chances of sight casting so we moved to plan B and decided to live bait fish. We located some nice schooling mullet in the feeder creeks around the landing, then headed down river in search of some menhaden for chum. With no birds in sight we decided to try our luck with just the mullet and while anchored we used a Sabiki rig and landed some nice herring. Fishing with both herring and mullet we rigged the live baits on 20 and 30 pound spinning tackle with 6-foot 60-pound mono leaders. We fished two baits on the surface under balloons and two baits on the bottom using a Carolina rig (sliding 2 to 5 ounce pyramid sinker.) We also kept pitch bait ready should a fish swim through the spread.
Like most all fish, these Cobia love structure. Just travel to one of our local artificial reefs in the summer time and you are guaranteed to see at least two or three Cobia roaming the area. In the Broad River we were fishing an area that was on average 20-feet deep with a series of mounds and valleys that ranged from 3 to 5- feet of relief. According to the more experienced Cobia fisherman, the herring and other baitfish will school in these valleys and the Cobia move in and ambush them.
Within about 30-minu