Wreck Jiggin' outta Sebastian
- July 14, 2007
- 0 Comments
- By Story/Photos By Matt Badolato
This past week has been a great time to get out into the blue water. Calm seas, light winds, and late afternoon thunderstorms make this time of year primo to get out and score some feesh. It can get pretty hot out there, but as long as there's some shade on your boat in the form of a T-top, hard top, bimini, or at least a Tom Sawyer style hat and a longsleeve shirt you should be safe from the death rays from above. These south winds that have been hangin around make for a little bumpy ride out in the mornings, but it is sure nice to have a breeze when it is 90 degrees.
Last Wednesday my buddies Paul, Josh, and I headed out in Paul's 19' center console to some bottom spots off of Sebastian Inlet. While I was cooking at the resturaunt Tuesday night, Paul and Josh collected a nice mess of pinfish of Paul's dock to use the next morning. Bright and early we charged through the flat inlet and out to the high bar, a 90' ridgeline about 24 miles out of the inlet. We anchored up on a couple spots that produced only a few small seabass and several silky sharks. On our way to a new coordinate we stumbed accross some stellar looking bottom that showed some 10' relief and a deep ledge, perhaps a wreck, as it was a bunch of scattered large chunks of bottom. The large fish marks on the fishfinder indicated that something was down there.
On my first drop with a live pinfish I hooked a large fish that screamed line off my reel with a locked down drag. It didn't give up like a grouper would and a few minutes later our hypothesis was correct and a 40lb amberjack came into view. Squinting into the blue I noticed that a couple fish were following my jack and it didn't take long before they came into focus. COBIA!! I shouted to Paul and Josh, who were armed with jigs and ready to go. Josh hooked one and the other swam away. Paul was now on gaff duty for Josh's cobia, so I leaned over the gunnel and pulled in the big jack and slammed him on the deck. Shortly after Paul sunk the big hook into Josh's 25lb cobe. After a few high fives we drove back up to the wreck for another drift.
This drift was just as action packed as the first. I was dropping a Williams Benthos deep jig and Paul and Josh were dropping bucktails tipped with squid. Josh hooks up right as we pass over the structure to a very solid fish. A kingfish cut my jig off on the way up so I sat back and readied the fishbox for this mystery fish. It comes to the surface near the boat and we get a glimpse of yet another nice cobia. We see a dark shape right behind our hooked fish and Paul shouts. "A shark is trying to eat your cobia!!" Well, as we soon found out, that was no shark, but rather a HUGE cobia around 50-60lbs. The only rod ready to go was a spinning rod with very twisted and kinked 20lb test with a short leader. I pinned a big squid on the hook that was too big for the tackle and lobbed it toward the big cobe, now swimming around the other hooked cobia less that 20 feet from the boat. He inhaled the squid and started to swim away as I set the hook. Well, Murphy's Law kicked in good as the line snapped while I was setting the hook and we watched the big fish head for the horizon with a new lip piercing. We gaffed our second cobia of the day, a 30lber, but were heartbroken over the big girl. Oh well, we had almost a full fish bag of meat already.
We landed some snake kingfish on Williamson jigs and SPRO bucktails tipped with squid. The bottom bite was slow ALL day with nothing but sharks to show. They were hitting everything; jigs, cut bait, live pinfish - we just couldn't get away from them.
Headed back in around 3 and were back home by 5. Awesome day on the water with good friends, nice weather, and great fishin. The big one got away, but hey, there's always next time. And until then, tight lines, calm seas, and good luck.