Massive Cobia in Store Bay
On August 7th 2018, at 9:30 pm, I, Capt Ace Spiegel from Florida, with assistance from my Chief mate Emil Hickey, from Denmark caught this Cobia, 71" from tip to tip, 37" in girth (measured just behind the pectoral fins), while at anchor approximately 200 meters from the beach off Store Bay, Tobago.
Several guests aboard the vessel saw the fish circling the boat thinking it was a shark. As a former charter fishing captain, I even thought it was a shark until it came into the underwater lights we had on at the time. At that point, I instanlty realized it was a big Cobia. I've caught many Cobia over the years, but never one of this size. Prior to this fish, my biggest Cobia was approximately 45 pounds. After Emil and I gave it all we had, we finally got the fish aboard. As we went to try and weigh the fish, it maxxed out our scale which went to 75 pounds. We made a few calls and eventually found a very friendly local fisherman with a scale that went up 100 lbs. After checking the scale for accuracy using two 5 pound weights we had aboard, the fish weighed out at nearly 98 pounds. I had gutted the fish prior to photos so to not spoil the meat. It was really a fat fish! We fileted the fish out and gave alot of it to locals we had met and had a great Cobia dinner the next evening.
I have been a mariner for nearly 18 years as captain of tug and barges, supply vessels (OSVs), passenger vessels and etc, which has allowed me to visit nearly the entire Caribbean including Guyana and Suriname. I must say that Tobago is my favorite place I have visited thus far. Beautiful island with such great people and fishing of course. Several locals in Tobago, as well as ourselves got to enjoy that great eating fish.
Captain Spiegel's Contact: Jspiegel39@gmail.com
