By: Capt. Miller Phillips
Clay Koeinig, of New Orleans, had never really caught a cobia. He’s been down here, and I believe we’ve caught some fish with him on the boat, but I know this was his official first cobia. It weighed 86.1 pounds. Clay is ruined for life.
We celebrated, but not as much as we should have. An 86.1-pounder is the biggest cobia I’ve ever seen on the deck, so to me it was a real big deal, and Clay tried to act like he knew how big of a deal it was, but he was clueless. He thinks this just happens all the time. He said it was “awesome” with the same enthusiasm as his “awesome” trip to Big Kahunas the day before. I’m happy we caught the fish, but more, I hope he eventually realizes this was not just “another fish.”
I called Clay on Friday morning, woke him up at his condo and told him to get rolling, as he was in town to help me with our cobia tournament and crawfish boil. We had a lot to get ready for the tournament weigh ins that started at 4 p.m., along with having to go to Sandestin to set up a catering event I committed to months before. I was concerned, without even the thought of fishing that day, that we’d get everything ready to go for weigh ins.
For whatever reason, Clay was dead set on fishing and convinced me it was ridiculous that I wasn’t fishing my own tournament, especially as I had entered my 24-foot Pathfinder which was sitting on the beach at Boshamps beckoning us to go. So, we stopped by Destin Ice and Tackle, grabbed two eels and a jig pole, and we went. I told him two hours was all we had. I was more or less taking him for a boat ride, to satisfy him and tell myself that I did actually fish my own tournament, if only for two hours.
One hour in, I saw her, 50 yards offshore, back out of the water, starving. I threw my darn jig off on the first cast. Clay instinctively picked up the nearest rod and threw the eel. She ate and went down. We waited, flipped bail and let the slack come tight.
We were on, and Clay started to climb out of the tower. She spit the eel but came back up to the top. I came back around on her, and Clay threw the same lifeless eel at her. She rolled over on it again. We were back on. About 40 minutes later, she came up, completely defeated.
She hit the deck and I started screaming. Clay was lying on the bow of the boat asking, “Is that a good one?” I was still screaming. It was 11 a.m., and we had to wait until 4 p.m. to weigh the fish.
When we came back from that catering event, we weighed some good fish and finally got her out at about 5:30 p.m. to weigh her… 86.1-pounds. Again, Clay was completely clueless, standing next to this giant fish like he’d done it 100 times and plans on doing it 100 more. Completely ruined.
It was one of the best days of my life, without a doubt.
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