# QLD - Cobia on the troll - Noosa 09Sep12 (now with video!)



## geminiwraith (Nov 26, 2010)

Participants: richmond, gemini, stormin, sunshiner, tarzan, kiwibro, corie, jaro, salty, kahuna, mangrove-mac
Conditions: Perfect, glassy, light breeze...to start with (I'll get to that later)

We all arrived at MG to a picture perfect start to the day. Very little wind, no swell, fantastic. Spaniards were to be the flavour of the day after Baptism's random catch the day before.









Launch time. Pic by sunshiner

A not so dry launch was my reward for jumping the gun, but my official excuse is that I was doing it for the camera...









Wet bum imminent!

Richmond had launched earlier, and after checking his location and status we all opted to head up the North Shore towards Little Halls and Halls reefs. The paddle up was largely uneventful, but we passed a number of dolphins enjoying themselves in the excellent conditions, some of whom had no issue with yak bound humans.









One of the dolphins only metres away.

After arriving at Little Halls, Sunshiner advised us that there was a reasonable amount of bait getting around, so he was going to paddle the area for a while. I opted for a brief bottom bash with some prawns, but turned a nil result.

With no action presenting itself, we then moved on to Halls. Once near Halls, the lack of bait in the water or strikes on trolled lines spooked a portion of our group who opted to move onto Jew Shoal instead. The remainder of us at Halls split again, with some trolling and some bashing the bottom. I opted for a brief bottom bash, pulling in a juvenile (type unknown) who went straight back.

After giving up on bottom bashing, I trolled my way over to Jaro who was pulling live bait from a school he had found. At the time I was only trolling a single line with a laser pro (for pelagics), but after leaving Jaro to his baitfish I dropped my second line. The second line was running a 120mm River 2 Sea downsider in gold...which was smashed within 300m of leaving Jaro.

The fight was brief, but he pulled pretty hard with a lot of head shaking. I thought I had a shark after spotting him circling below, but it turned out to be a healthy cobia.









Come to papa!

In the excitement the cobia had managed to foul hook itself nicely in the gills, so he went into the hold with lure intact. I had then intended to head back to MG via a slow troll in close to shore, but Jaro asked me to wait to assist with his yak, and to get a few photos.









Cobia, with lure intact.

This is where things became interesting. Sunshiner radioed to advise us of a stiff breeze whipping up from the south east which may cause us problems on the return trip. We decided to head back without any further delay, but we were still too slow. Halfway between Halls and Little Halls we saw the breeze stirring the water in our path...then it struck. At 10-15 knots, gusting to 20, we had a hard slog back to MG for the last 4KMs. I will most certainly be feeling that in the morning!

Re-entry was uneventful, although I did have one rogue wave slip under me that required a bit of leaning on my part.









Weeeeeeeeeeee!

Unfortunately the total fish count for the day was a bit slim. Asides from the cobia, Sunshiner bagged a bonito, and Kiwibro bagged a ?? (what did you get? I was too busy paddling to hear the identification on the radio at the time).









Cobia on the mat. 98cm. 5KG (exact, weighed at Davos) Pic by sunshiner









Distance 15.2 km
Max Speed 8.1 km/hour
Avg Speed 3.0 km/hour


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## Bogey (Apr 24, 2010)

Great report
Fabulous fish
Gotta get up there again!
Mark


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## geminiwraith (Nov 26, 2010)

Cheers guys. That's my first ever cobia there too.

I should point out that the R2S downsider he took was only purchased during the previous week specifically with cobia in mind. I can't complain about the performance on its maiden run.  I'm starting to really like the R2S gear, as i've already had a lot of success with their freshwater stuff.


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## DennisT (Jan 2, 2012)

Nicely Done.

A great report and some good pics too.

Silly me for leaving at 2 pm on Saturday rather than staying an extra night and going for a paddle with you gents.

Congrats on the Cobe

Cheers


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## Davey G (Jan 15, 2006)

Well done Matt, good to see you catching a good one. Was the Cobe in good condition, he looks a bit skinny in that brag mat photo??

Longtails one day, Spanish Mack's the next and a Cobia to add to the mix. Noosa sure is producing some good fish lately. A mid weeker is looking good.


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## geminiwraith (Nov 26, 2010)

I'm not overly familiar with cobia (from the outside), so i'm not sure if it was skinny for its size or not. It might be just that photo, as no one else has mentioned that. There was plenty of flesh on him that's for sure ..mmmmmmmmmmmmmm


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## imtheman (Aug 24, 2012)

just goes to show you dont need exxy gear to land big fish! thats a 40 dollar sienna reel
nice cobia matey


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## ryan (May 30, 2012)

nice cobe such a good table fish just curious how do u get the distance traveled and all that via google earth is it an app for a phone or is it your kayak gps?


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## geminiwraith (Nov 26, 2010)

imtheman said:


> just goes to show you dont need exxy gear to land big fish! thats a 40 dollar sienna reel
> nice cobia matey


Yeah don't knock the Siennas! I run two (along with the TLD25) that cop a salty hiding on the yak and seem to cope fairly well (with a little maintenance), and at that price replacing them in the event of death isn't an issue.



ryan said:


> nice cobe such a good table fish just curious how do u get the distance traveled and all that via google earth is it an app for a phone or is it your kayak gps?


I export my tracks from my Garmin eTrex into Google Earth, and it then gives you all that data (plus more). When it tells me i've done a max speed of 12km/h, I can then go into the track points and find exactly where I was riding that wave with a massive tailwind being towed by a 4m tiger...


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## keza (Mar 6, 2007)

Nice report. Confused seasons at the moment by the look of it.
Well done on the cobia.


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## geminiwraith (Nov 26, 2010)

Another video mashup for your viewing pleasure.


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## ckler2 (Mar 12, 2012)

Hi gemini, great vid and that was a good fish mate.

Thanks, Carlton


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## geminiwraith (Nov 26, 2010)

Thanks mate!

I've been asked where the actual landing of the cobia has gone from my video. I cut the end due to a big water droplet on the lens obscuring the view, and excessive stuffing about on my part (with gaffs and lines etc). I've had some experts give me some tips for editing things like that, so I might have another crack later (or wait for the next one). You get the idea anyway. This video caper is time consuming stuff!


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