Photog Blog- By Jason Stemple

Cobia and Tripletail Show

getting ready to pull up to the first cobia rig. gopro hero3+, f2.8, 1/2500 sec, 

This show is really a tale of two very different kinds of fish and different kinds of fishing. As I discussed last week, the wind had been hammering us on and off (mostly on) during our stay in Louisiana, so we had to come up with options that kept us in the fish and out of 10 foot seas. On last week’s show you saw one of those options, as we fished a nearshore rig for red snapper. Another close in option was to go rig to rig searching for cobia. Cobia are strong aggressive fish and are also great on the dinner table. They can be deep at times, but are just as likely to be cruising the surface circling a rig, where they can be sightfished. 

a jig heading right for two surface cruising cobias. nikon d300s, 110mm, f/5.6, 1/200 sec

scott bringing the first cobia to the boat. nikon d800, 28mm, f/5.6, 1/640 sec

steve helping out with the frabill net. nikon d800, 22mm, f/5.6, 1/320 sec

So the drill was to pull up to a rig and look around on the surface while casting jigs and letting them drop down a ways next to the rig before retrieving them. There is no lack of structure out in the Gulf and it didn’t take us long to find a couple of big brown bombers cruising the surface. Scott hooked one quickly on a jig and its partner sank out of sight before Steve could double it up. Steve kept casting as they will often hang around a hooked fish, but we never saw the second fish again. It took a little while, but Scott got the fish boatside and Steve scooped it up in the Frabill net then it took a nice cool ice bath. A half hour later Scott hooked another nice cobia and they repeated the scenario. 

cobia number two on board. nikon d300s, 85mm, f/5.6, 1/800 sec

The tripletail fishing was a little bit different. While they do love structure, we found them in the bay where we were catching bait for the red snapper show just drifting on the surface. So for tripletail, the technique would be to drift the bay with the wind and current looking for single tripletails floating on the surface, then cast live shrimp to them. So we set up on the upwind side of the bay and drifted. We seemed a little overboated, with 2 boats in the upper 30’ range fishing in 15 feet of water, but you roll with the hand you are dealt. And besides, the tower on the 39’ Yellowfin gave them a great height advantage for sightfishing. So Scott, Steve and Captain Kevin Beach from Mexican Gulf Fishing Company were all in the tower with a couple of light spinning rods and a bucket of shrimp. 

steve hooked up with a nice tripletail. nikon d800, 35mm, f/9.0, 1/500 sec

Tripletail are funny creature, they will float on their side drifting on the surface or right up against some sort of structure mimicking trash until something smaller swims up to use them as structure themselves, and gulp! When you first see them floating they look like a plastic grocery bag or some other trash until you can get a closer look. We ended up seeing 5 or 6 in our first drift and Steve was able to hook two, getting one to the boat and into the ice. It was Steve’s biggest tripletail to date and he later gave a little clinic on cleaning them back at the dock. 

out of the net, into the yeti! nikon d300s, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/1000 sec

Quote of the day “Homie’s like a band-aid” Steve said as he explained how they stick to structure.

tripletail at the fish cleaning station. nikon d800, 98mm, f/5.0, 1/2500 sec