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On Monday of this week, Don Hammond of the South
Carolina Department of Natural Resources and I installed the first pop-up
satellite tag ever on an Atlantic coast Cobia. The tag was attached to a
65-pound female Cobia caught by coach Dan Utley at the Broad River Bridge. The
pop-up tag is scheduled to stay with her for 30 days when a charge from the
internal computer will cause a metal ring to corrode and the computer portion
of the tag will pop to the surface, uplink to passing satellites and upload the
water depths and temperatures that the Cobia has been traveling in.
Based on the timelines, the beginning and end GPS
positions and analysis of the temperature and depths, we should be able to come
up with a fairly good idea where she has been each day. Bets are being taken as
to whether she will go offshore to join what we think may be a permanent local
stock or will she migrate up the coast. We know that we can catch Cobia in deep
offshore waters all year around but we have also had a locally tagged Cobia
show up in Mississippi.
I asked Don Hammond how the locally stocked fish
from the Waddell Center know where to go? When we stocked some in the fall of
2001, well after the spawning stocks had left, what made the first recovered
tagged fish go to Cocoa Beach, 21 days later. Don says that it was probably
determined genetically by where their mother was from.
Although we know that we can go offshore this time
of the year and tag some of the many Cobia at the Betsy Ross Reef, we are
primarily interested in the Cobia that spawn inshore in the vicinity of Port
Royal Sound. Through tagging studies such as this we can learn what water
temperatures and depths that the Cobia prefer to feed in and spawn, whether or
not our spawning stock stays in local waters, and how long they stay around,
After correlating this wtith weather, rainfall, catch success, and tidal
changes each year we hope to add some predictability to a very strange fish.
Armed with enough information we plan to be in
position to protect and enhance our Cobia stocks as the number of boats fishing
for them in the Broad River doubles over the next 10 years. On any good weather
weekend, it's not unusual to count up to 100 boats targeting Cobia from the
Broad River Bridge to the mouth of Port Royal Sound.
The inshore season for Cobia appears to be winding
down but we plan to continue this effort next year, trying to involve more
fishermen. Right now the Cobia still seem to be available in good numbers at
the offshore reefs. Capt. Johnny Walker of the charter boat "Persistence"
caught nine Cobias offshore on Monday, releasing most of them.
The Federal limits on Cobia are fairly liberal
right now, which is 2 per person per boat. The thought of four fishermen being
able to keep over 300 pounds of spawning fish in a day gags most of us. Please
release what you can.
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