It's cobia time in Broad River

[Sam]

Twenty-plus years ago when I moved to Charleston, fishing for cobia was a popular - although not always productive - spring pastime.
You headed out early in the morning with a livewell that included a handful of big live mullet, eased up to the buoys marking the shipping channel and peered intently in the water. If there was a cobia around, he would generally show himself. You would pitch the bait out, let it sink and hope the cobia was hungry. The technique also worked at the buoys marking the artificial reefs.
Cobia are a curious fish, and they often would move from beneath the buoy and hang underneath your boat. I once had a huge one - and I was convinced it was pretty close to state record size - swim out from beneath the C-Buoy that marks the end of the shipping channel and hang underneath my boat. I tossed out a menhaden on a shiny nickel-plated hook and the cobia took the bait. As soon as it felt the hook, it spit the menhaden out. I kept trying to entice the fish. I tossed out live menhaden and the cobia would wolf them down until you put one out with a hook. I finally gave up and went in search of a species that would be more cooperative.
That, in a nutshell, is how cobia fishing used to be. Today, if you talk to someone from Charleston about cobia fishing, it's going to entail a drive south toward Beaufort and Hilton Head to fish the Broad River or Port Royal Sound.
Cobia fishing in this area isn't a sport that's newly discovered; it just that Charleston fishermen are beginning to discover it. One of the earliest books I purchased on saltwater fishing had a chapter devoted to catching cobia from a pier that juts into the Broad River.
There are two basic styles for catching the Broad River and Port Royal cobia - anchoring in known hotspots and fishing with bait or cruising the river and looking for fish on the surface.
Some of the better-known cobia spots in the Broad River are the PI (Parris Island) Rip and the Turtle. The most popular cobia baits are live eels, which can be purchased at area tackle shops. Fishermen also utilize threadfin herring (greenies), menhaden, blue crabs and even squid. The majority of the fishermen will put out a couple of baits just under the surface on floats and a couple of more baits down on the bottom and chum heavily.
But when conditions are right, one of the most exciting ways is to sight-fish for cobia. When there's little or no breeze and the sun is bright, you can sometimes spot the big fish cruising near the surface and that means an opportunity to toss a live bait or even catch one on a fly. While it can be difficult to spot the fish at a distance, a "push," similar to what you see with a redfish in shallow water, is a good indicator of a cruising cobia.
Tackle for cobia should be stout, considering many of these fish will weigh 30 or more pounds. Spinning rods should be spooled with 20- to 30-pound test line; fly tackle should be 10-weight or heavier. The cobia begin to show in mid- to late-April and they stick around until mid-June. The Broad River-Port Royal area has been identified along with the Chesapeake Bay and Beaufort Inlet in North Carolina as probable spawning sites for cobia.
The South Carolina record is 87 pounds, 12.8 ounces and was set in Beaufort in May 2005. Current regulations limit anglers to two fish per person per day that measure at least 33 inches from the tip of the mouth to the fork of the tail.

The Post and Courier, Charleston SC | Charleston.net

[Charkbait]

This is the time of year though.

I think I have a way outside chance the end of this month, we'll see!