Pacemaker Fishing Forum

Below is the picture of the Cobias we caught on 8-7-05 out of Oregon Inlet.



But there is a story that I should sell to a fishing magazine! This was my fifth try for the Cobias.

Try #1, Capt. got sick- heat exhaustion

Try #2- Saw only one Cobia in 4 hours so we spent  the rest of the time spec fishing

Try #3- Water too cold, only things swimming around were bluefish so we caught a bunch

Try #4- Went out with Capt. Aaron Kelly and we did manage to catch one, but Jon was the one who got it.

Try #5- Paydirt!

We had a house full of folks (19) at the beach and I had a crew of four all lined up for Tuesday but that crew grew to six so I stayed home and sent the relatives out with DOA. They come back with two Cobias under their belt, one for Dennis and one for Tony.

Then I go out with Rock Solid (Aaron Kelly) for a 1/2 day on Thursday with my son Jon and his girlfriend Regina and we only see one Cobia and we manage to hook him but I give the rod to my son and he scores. I still don't have my first Cobia.

So...I go out on Saturday with my nephew Brandon for my final attempt. We see a few and miss them and then we hook into one but it's Brandon who has caught the beast and he scores his 1st Cobia. I am still without fish and four family members have their 1st one!

The rest of the story is told by Donnie Davis (Capt. of DOA) with my rebuttal at the end.

"Ernie fishes with me a lot and had never caught a Cobia so we put the time in on Sat. We covered lots of water and 5 hrs into the trip were sitting on a pepe. Now Ernie loves to tell people the story of the first time he fished with me and I got heat exhaustion on board and pooped all over myself. But I'm a bigger man than he is so I'm not gonna embarrass him and tell y'all how we saw eight Cobias in an hour yesterday and only caught 2 of them. I'm not gonna tell you how we saw a pair and I hooked one and the other fish was looking for something to eat as well and I told Ernie to cast left at the fish and he casted right over top of my fish. I'm not gonna tell you about the one we had on a live bait that came off while Ernie was fighting it. I'm not gonna tell you about the one that Ernie casted to and he landed his bucktail right in the middle of the grass line. And I'm not gonna tell you about the one which was circling the boat looking for something to eat and Ernie was jigging his bucktail about 50 feet below the fish. I'm not gonna embarrass my pal Ernie because he is my friend. Oh yea, I forgot to not tell you about the one which was behind the live bait that Ernie put out that wouldn't eat until I told Ernie to reel it in and it has grass on it too. Not gonna talk about it....nope."

Nice shirt Donnie!!!



The real rest of the story is that I had told Donnie to go ahead and pack it in as it was way past his time with me. He said, "let's work this change for another 10 minutes". With about 45 seconds to go in the ten minutes, he spotted a small Cobia but it wouldn't take the bait. We were done! I was satisfied that we had put in a hard day and relegated to the fact that I was not going to get my 1st Cobia. So I went to the back of the boat to pick up the live baits and all the sudden I could not believe what I was seeing! I hollered to Donnie that there was a huge Cobia right behind the motor! Plain as day...I could have reached out and touched him! This was a 34 pounder that needed to be caught so I could take my Cobia skunk off. I could not get it to bite the live bait but Donnie coaxed it to bite the crab colored jig and he set the hook in a manner that I have never seen before because he was going to make sure I landed that beast. No....I was not exited...I was calm and cool!

I got my 1st Cobia and I will go back for many more!

Ernie