A strange, twisted tale of a cobia’s demise.
We were offshore in the Gulf yesterday, a dozen miles off the Florida coast, and I’d just finished a half-hour dive, taking pictures of undersea critters. A peaceful endeavor. But back in the boat, things were about to turn strange and violent. A big cobia suddenly appeared, cruising boldly on the surface, circling us. I grabbed the biggest rod on the boat, rigged with a circle hook. We had not carried proper cobia or kingfish tackle, since they’re normally scarce in that area.
We did not have proper live bait either, but I pinned a small, live seabass to the circle hook and flipped it out there in front of the cobia. It showed immediate interest, nosing the seabass that wiggled feebly. Soon the bait disappeared and the cobia seemed to munched it thoughtfully—-so I leaned back on the 20-pound spin rod, trying to set the circle hook. (You can’t yank it hard, like when setting a J-hook). If that cobia had made a run, the circle hook would have dug into his hard lip. But instead the big fish wallowed on the surface, puzzled what might be holding it back. For half a minute, a stalemate: the spin rod bent double, the fish wallowing, the circle hook trying to dig into gristle and bone. Then the hook flew out of his mouth! Disappointed, we watched it cruise away. The big fish didn’t seem too agitated from losing its dinner, however.
Minutes later the cobia showed up again, eventually passing us by a dozen times. I tried to entice it with a colorful jig, slices of fresh fish, free chum chunks tossed in front of it. This time it ignored everything. Often it passed by close enough to touch or even “free-gaff” it into the boat, which is fairly dangerous, since they can wreck a boat’s interior. So, in desperation, we loaded a big speargun. You’re not supposed to shoot these out of water, and I had never tried it. But young Bradley, a graduate student from the University of Florida, is gung-ho and wanted his first cobia ever. I had him put on snorkel gear for a water fight, thinking that even shooting the cobia in the head would result in a serious battle that, from the boat, would possibly ruin the spear or break its cord tether.
Young Bradley cocked the gun and waited. Several times, the cobia approached from the wrong side, necessitating a hasty duck-walk that was difficult with large flippers on his feet…but his boat is an 18-footer and not far from one side to the other. Finally, the cobia approached slowly from the stern, a perfect right-to-left shot. I coaxed him: “Aim low, aim low, remember light defracts, you’ll shoot over the top of him…” Seconds later he fired, there was a mighty splash, we retrieved the spear, he’d missed…shot right across the top of its head at point-blank range!
At that point the cobia seemed to realize it wasn’t welcome, for it disappeared. We assumed our only chance remaining was for Bradley to suit up in scuba gear, and hunt for it some 30 feet below on bottom. He began suiting up. I grabbed our only Sabiki bait rig and dropped it down, after we’d noted several schools of circling, prime baitfish below—-both cigar minnows and Spanish sardines. But ours was a heavier Sabiki with hooks a little too big for both species. Then something bigger than a sardine grabbed the Sabiki and hung up on bottom. As Bradley rolled overboard with his tank, his parting words were a promise to loosen my bait rig from the bottom.
As he sank astern in a cloud of bubbles, I noticed my bait rig was no longer hung up on bottom, but was headed towards Bradley…I lifted the rod, which had a tiny spin reel suitable for freshwater fishing, and began pulling…Hmmm….there was considerable weight on it, and moving. I pulled a little harder and the same big cobia materialized, swimming with my tiny bait rig that held six small hooks. He seemed to have eaten some small, lively fish on my rig while it was snagged on bottom, but now refused to turn it loose. And he was swimming towards Bradley…
Whose bubbles converged on my line. No! Don’t shoot! He’s on my line! There was a thumping on my line, then a heavy, stationary weight. Lots of bubbles. More jerks and savage tugs. I stopped pulling on the line, merely keeping it taunt. Minutes passed, or seemed to. Then a slack line, my bait rig was cut off, only two hooks remaining out of six. I put the rod away.
Then Bradley surfaced, clutching the cobia. His floating speargun trailed a dozen feet behind him. I gaffed the near-lifeless cobia in the lip and lifted it aboard, a heavy fish. Bradley climbed aboard, wired with adrenalin, stammering out his story: When the cobia passed close by and slightly below, Bradley had fired the spear, a solid hit behind the head, though missing the spine. The cobia went crazy, towed Bradley to the bottom, where they fought it out. Grappling with the fish so it wouldn’t break his spear, he pulled his small dive knife and stabbed it repeatedly just behind the head, while the cobia’s big tail pounded his legs. ‘Round and ‘round they went. In the excitement, Bradley never noticed my six-hook Sabiki rig, one of them later found stuck in his foot bootie, another in the cobia’s gill cover. I had assumed the six hooks would be pinned all over Bradley and would have to be removed with needlenose pliers, since the nearest Doc-in-the-Box was far away.
Anyway, it was a strange ending for a fine fish. Bradley’s steel spear was bent, but may be salvageable. We returned to port early, since it’s tail wouldn’t fit inside the boat’s ice chest. Bradley will never forget his first cobia—-that weighed 52 pounds on marina scales. A crowd gathered ‘round us at the dock while we cleaned the fish, some shaking their heads as our story unfolded.
