You should indeed bring some spot with you on your next trip out for cobia. I think now at this time I have been out probably for 25 hours on the anchor and fishing and I may have forgotten a run with an eel being taken but I think all of the runs have been on live spot. I will get more into this later but for now the story of the day.
Today the water was too rough early this morning but I did know of at least one person that went out early and caught. For me I was content to stay inland and wait it out. So Rick and I headed out about noon. Honestly, once we got out there we could have left a bit earlier but I never want to take that kind of chance. We went to the same exact location and why not after it being so active there on Monday. Got set up on anchor and got our two live spots in and two live eels. There was zero action while we were in the tide change but we were at least not fighting the rods and we didn’t have to reset the lines nearly as often. Really just a bait check or two was all we had to do but hope for the big one to swim by. I always say I am hoping we get two dumb ones by my boat.
After the tide changed we were still a bit slow but then the weather changed. There were storms brewing inland and the wind changed direction to S as opposed to E all day and it picked up speed. Rick got one big screamer on his side and as I was trying to clear the lines from my side of the boat his leader broke. A 50# true purchased this year’s leader, not just some line pulled off the spool. I was surprised for sure but we came up with the idea after the hook was set we did need to release the drag more. I have a lever drag system on my reels so it is fairly easy to do.
About 20 min. later I had one scream on my side. Did I say that screaming sound of line ripping on my reel is one of my favorite sounds ever. If anyone has a ring-tone with that sound I would love it. Anyway, we finally had a cobia on the line and in only about 5 min we had him in the boat hoping for our next one.
About another 20 min I had another screamer which turned out to be a skate. I have always thought that skate would not take a live spot (really anything live) but that is not true. I have never seen them take a live eel but I have plenty of evidence from this year that they will in fact take a live spot.
The weather turned even harder, the wind from the south was getting later in the day so we left the grounds at about 4:30 pm. No question that location off Chesapeake Beach is in my chart plotter saved and I will be back next time I go out.
This fish turned out to be 42″ and weighed 26.5 lbs. I caught him on a spot with a 7/0 J hook. I use a standard dead drop with about 6 feet of leader.
July 13, 2022
| High | Low | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Temperature | 87.2 °F | 71.7 °F | 80.0 °F |
| Dew Point | 77.7 °F | 68.1 °F | 73.6 °F |
| Humidity | 94 % | 64 % | 81 % |
| Precipitation | 0.00 in | — | — |
| High | Low | Average | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wind Speed | 7.4 mph | 0.0 mph | 1.3 mph |
| Wind Gust | 8.9 mph | — | 1.9 mph |
| Wind Direction | — | — | WNW |
| Pressure | 30.58 in | 30.48 in | — |
