The new all-tackle record cobia from waters near Perth, Australia, weighed 175 pounds and was 6’8” long.
Though many coastal anglers in the southeast view cobia as a local species, it’s actually a world-wide roamer in temperate seas—and the biggest of the bigs are no longer caught in U.S. waters.
That was emphasized just last month with a cobia catch that may stand for all time as an IGFA all-tackle record, an astounding 175-pounder that measured 6 feet, 8 inches long and had a girth of 41 inches—caught in the waters of western Australia.
The catch has a USA link, however—it was caught on a 1.5 ounce Z-Man HeadlockZ jighead with a 7” Z-Man Jerk ShadZ soft plastic tail.
The mind-blowing cobia catch, better by a hundred pounds than fish we see in U.S. waters these days, is so far out of the normal range that we’ll probably never see a bigger one, but the waters Down Under are noted for producing really big cobia.
The 18-year-old angler, Koby Duncan, a commercial fisherman by trade, was on a birthday charter for one of his buddies with Captain Drew Clowes of Jazz Charters. He was working the jig on a reef pinnacle in 100 feet of water about 12 nautical miles off Perth, on the south side of Rottnest Island.
The pinnacle extends into the Leeuwin Current, similar to our Gulf Stream, which carries warm water north to south along the west coast of Australia. The surface temperature difference can be 3 to 6 degrees F, a significant fish magnet as water cools, as it is doing now as the Southern Hemisphere moves into fall.
The new record cobia came on a Z-Man jig and JerkShadZ tail.
Unfortunately, it’s probably going to be a long time, if ever, before we see record-size cobia in U.S. waters again.
Huge cobia were a favorite target of anglers along the Florida Panhandle during the height of the fishery in the 1990’s, when the state record was broken there several times, topped by a 130-1 monster caught in 1995.
The Panhandle migration brought hundreds of adult fish migrating just outside the “Green Reef”, the nearshore bar that stretches along most of the Panhandle all the way to Mobile Bay. It was a spring deal, with most catches coming in April and early May. The fish were caught by easing up to a school cruising at the surface and putting a live eel or baitfish in front of them. There was also a big fish aggregation off the Florida Keys December through February at about this same time.
There were so many fish in some areas that tournaments specifically targeting cobia were held in some areas, boosting the already intense harvest pressure.
Because the fish are easily seen and easily fooled into taking a wide variety of baits and lures, they are quickly impacted by heavy fishing pressure. Everybody fished for cobia and everybody caught them—until suddenly they didn’t.
Cobia fishing in U.S. waters is now in a slump, apparently due to overfishing. Both state and federal fishery managers closed the door too late in 2022, making a two-fish-per-boat-per day rule for commercial and recreational fishers and increasing the minimum size to 36 inches. But by then the cobia fishery as it was historically known was long gone on both coasts of Florida.
The new all-tackle record cobia came from the waters near Rotnest Island, off the coast of Western Australia, where a current similar to the Gulf Stream brings warm water near the coast.)
Fortunately cobia are fast growers, and a two-year-old fish may be close to 35” long and weigh over 15 pounds in prime conditions, per Florida’s Fish & Wildlife Commission. They live up to 12 years and continue rapid growth through much of their lives, with the giants exceeding 100 pounds and 6-foot lengths. And the females can spawn at age 3, the males at age 2.
In short, this is a fish that should be capable of a rapid comeback with the cut in harvest pressure, but for the next several years, it’s almost a sure thing that U.S. anglers won’t be seeing many giant cobia in waters where they were abundant 20 years ago.
— Frank Sargeant
Frankmako1@gmail.com
