Every now and again I don’t mind fishing Moreton Bay and the area around the top of Moreton Island for Cobia. It’s close to home and means you use very little fuel and fish gentleman’s hours. Another bonus is that I can take people fishing who aren’t fishing fanatics and would struggle to even consider coming away with me for overnight trips in remote offshore waters.
For most fishermen catching large cobia is an exciting experience so to see people who haven’t caught a decent fish before attached to one of these monsters is very satisfying.I recently took out a couple mates with hope of getting their arms stretched and it was long before launched the boat and started filling up the live bait tank yakkas and went searching. The areas I search for cobia range from beacons, Curtin wrecks, ledges along west side of Moreton and coffee rock reefs. When the fish are not around in numbers it’s wise to anchor up and try burly the water up to attract the fish. I personally don’t mind just drift fishing the areas suggested until I start finding some fish but everyone has different ideas.
By mid morning we had tried several areas with no luck until my oldmans live yakka gets smashed and races away before rubbing off on some structure. We were using 80lb tackle with a sliding 5-ball sinker on to a set of ganged hooks or big gun mustards as well. The next couple hours turned on some great Cobia action as well as a cod and both my mates caught their biggest fish ever. They thought the cobia didn’t fight very well and came to the boat with ease but I explained that when they reach the boat they would go nuts and start to put some hurt on you. Both had their fish on for almost 30 minutes and with arms and backs aching finally had them in the boat and proudly holding them up for some pictures.
We caught some cracking fish that day but also lost some brutes to rub offs which is just part of fishing these particular areas.
Greg Lamprecht