Cobia Techniques for the North East

HI BKs - I appreciate the faith you have in me, but I've never done this fishing, and probably won't in the immediate future.

I do think that fishing thru the sharks is probably the issue here, and I'm not sure how best to deal with them - maybe your trying chunks instead of free swimmers is the answer, maybe not. I don't know if the cobia will pick up scraps, like a big, lazy bass, or if they'll only hit free swimmers.

Maybe you could scout around for a pod that has less sharks circling it? I have to check and see if there are any YouTube vids of this fishing - I mean specific to our area, up here off the south shore. If I do find one, I'll post it. Meantime, can anyone else give BKs some good advice here?

Here's what I've found on a quick search:

Thanks, well new game plan, I wasn't doing anything like that LOL

Lep, I'm ready for your knowledge. I have fished for Cobia down south with sucess, bait of choice down south is eels and squid. I would use my bass pole and blue fish rig. When using an eel, I would let it go since the eel would swim to the bottom if using a squid some weight to get the squid close to the bottom.

Now for the north east, I have only tried twice and both times it's been non-stop sharks and lots of lost tackle. So I was live lining bunker, 40 to 60 feet of water, the hook was set closer to the tail with a barrel weight to bring the bunker lower under the school. I dont want to go heaver and use my tuna poles and shark rigs.

So I was thinking to try a bunker chunk and heavier weight to get the bait closer to the bottom and away from the sharks as I'm guessing the Cobia may be picking up the scraps from the sharks closer to the bottom and hopefully there are less sharks at the bottom.

Thoughts, suggestions?????

I've gotten them in the Chesapeake using a fishfinder &fresh bunker chunks.

I've never seen so many cobia hit the scales around here. Huge fish. Bay Park has seen some huge ones!

Don't forget if you're fishing bunker, live or chunked, you should consider using non-offset circle hooks so if you catch any bycatch stripers, you can keep them. Weird to call stripers "Bycatch", LOL!!

Roc - Bass have pretty much vamoosed from our SS waters. Rising temps have sent them your way. I guess your way, anyways. But you are right, erring on the side of caution would be prudent.

I had my first sucess with the soth shore cobia yesterday. Got a decent one fishing a live bunker on a 9/0 circle hook tied to a 60# flouro leader. It was early in the morning (7 a.m). We saw a bunker school that was getting harassed and did the snag and drop thing. The bunker pod swam away from the boat so we idled back over to the school with the bunker in tow. The cobia bit just as we slowed to a stop(very slow drift, no wind). It was a quick runoff and then nothing. The cobia was just swimming with the bait owards the boat. I reeled in the slack and came tight, and then the fish took off. Despite the non offset circle, it was hooked very deeply.

AS far as tackle, I was using an Avet SX with 20# mono and a st croix 15-30# conventional rod.

Congrats on that beast! And thanks for all of the info. I needed to be educated on this fishery!

Beautiful fish,. I'm heading out tomorrow again to give it a try

@Bassknuckles This may seem obvious, but anyone I've spoken with has said that the bunker school was being harassed.

I guess the question is do you use a circle hook in case of a slot bass?

Good luck and let us know how you make out.

I had my first sucess with the soth shore cobia yesterday. Got a decent one fishing a live bunker on a 9/0 circle hook tied to a 60# flouro leader. It was early in the morning (7 a.m). We saw a bunker school that was getting harassed and did the snag and drop thing. The bunker pod swam away from the boat so we idled back over to the school with the bunker in tow. The cobia bit just as we slowed to a stop(very slow drift, no wind). It was a quick runoff and then nothing. The cobia was just swimming with the bait owards the boat. I reeled in the slack and came tight, and then the fish took off. Despite the non offset circle, it was hooked very deeply.

AS far as tackle, I was using an Avet SX with 20# mono and a st croix 15-30# conventional rod.View attachment 51836

Great catch!!!

Russ is my personal friend and fishing Buddy - I asked him to come here and share his catch story when he told me of it this morning. He has a gorgeous BHM28, btw.

So we had successes with the Cobia on Friday. Went out at 6:00 am. The first pod had shark so we moved on and found another pod and immediately caught a blue fish so we knew there was no shark in it. The secret was stealth mode and sight fishing. Moving outside the pod we saw our first Cobia and cast toward her a little to close and we startled her. Kept moving and found another Cobia we tossed the bunker further into the pod and retrieved the bunker passed the Cobia and the Cobia followed the bunker toward the boat. Finally, after a few attempts and technique changes we brought the bunker toward the Cobia and finally the Cobia attacked the bunker and finally had one. A day of learning but it paid off. So some secrets we found is the conditions need to be perfect because you need to sight fish. Look for something that looks like a “ 3 foot brown log floating outside the pod” If you watch her long enough you will see the log charge into the pod attacking the bunker. Remember stealth mode, move outside the pod and if you don't see any Cobia move on to another pod. We tried again on Saturday but the conditions were not good for spotting bunker or spotting Cobia.

They won’t hit an artificial if there feeding on bunker? One way to find out..

"They won’t hit an artificial if there feeding on bunker? One way to find out.."
We tried without success, we will try again however.

@Bassknuckles That's some great info there. It backs up everything Im hearing about how to approach these fish. You're looking for pods of bunker that aren't being harassed by sharks, and sight fish for the cobia that are outside of the schools.

A few guys I spoke with said they were tough to spot and that they're very skittish if not actively on the feed.

Are you rigging the bunker with the hook up front or just hooking them and sending them back out? There's a lot to learn about this fishery as I believe it's here to stay.

And congrats on the fishing!

Are you rigging the bunker with the hook up front or just hooking them and sending them back out? There's a lot to learn about this fishery as I believe it's here to stay.

We did both, I was using a semi-dead bunker and placed the hook through the lower jaw and up through the upper jaw so when I cast the bunker into the pod I could retrieve the bunker toward the Cobia and the bunker looked more life like. My friend hooked the bunker behind the top fin and let the bunker loose back toward the pod. Cant say which one works best yet. Also, you will need a medium to heavy duty spinning gear for this type of fishing.