Cobia Fishing in Key West January 31st

Sundays are a day of rest, but for fishing guides here in the Florida Keys Sundays are just another day in the salt mines.  Well, salt mines might be a little drastic!  This past Sunday I had the good luck to have a day off so I drove to Key West at 5:30 in the morning to take a Busman’s Holiday, I went fishing with Capt. Steve Lamp of Dream Catcher Charters.

Dream Catcher Charters of Key West operates several bay boats and their flag ship is the 32 foot Mercury Verado powered Yellowfin.  This boat is a BEAST!  Capt. Steve pilots this rocket ship out of Sunset Marina and we took the “Intense” out for a great day of catching!

The boat was fitted out with rods and reels of every shape and size and no detail was left to chance, we were loaded for Bear!  Our first stop was a winner!  Without going into details and or lats/lons, the wreck we set up on was a winner.  We sat idle for 2 minutes, at the most, before packs of ravenous Cobia showed up all around the Yellowfin.  The order to “cast to that fish” just wasn’t enough information as we were surrounded by Cobia of all sizes.  “Throw to those fish at 12 o’clock” was confusing as you had to decide which pack to throw to.  The pack of fish at 12 o’clock 20 feet away or those fish at 12 o’clock  60 feet away!  It was as if we were General Custer and the whole Indian Nation was coming down after us. It was great!  Multiple hook ups, bent hooks, lost fish and so much laughter took up the better part of the morning.

The spin outfits that we used ranged from 20 lb. sticks to a 12 lb. buggy whip that I will refer to as the “Punisher” until the feeling comes back into my arms!  The Cobia ranged from 32 inches to the fork to 44 inches to the fork of the tail, 10 to 30 pounds in other words.  We used live pinfish freelined on 3/0 hooks and 3/8 ounce bucktail jigs with light wire hooks.  The bucktails out fished the live bait, maybe it was the frantic motion of the bucktail that did the trick.  The Cobia were chasing one another back to the boat like puppies chasing a toy.

It was an absolute blast sight fishing big Cobia in water as clear blue as Windex.  I was surrounded by fish and great fishermen on a perfect Sunday morning on my day off!  Aside from Capt. Steve, Capt. Kyle Kelso was  enjoying a day off on the water as well and boy was it worth the early morning drive.  A couple of hours later we decided to give our arms and the fish a rest.

If you find yourself yearning for a fight with a fish on a beautiful tropical island with the best of the best in the fishing game here in the Florida Keys give the crew at Dream Catcher Charters a call today!

Thanks for following along and if I sounded as if I was bragging .  . . I was . . . It was an outstanding day of fishing in the Florida Keys!

Capt. Matt Bellinger Bamboo Charters Islamorada, Florida