Checking in from Gulf Coast

I haven't been on the site much in the past few months as many of you know I retired from the Air Force (32 years) and have moved south to San Antonio TX to be close to my aging parents.  I have been paying attention and have been watching closely as you guys have been having a great salmon season
 Anyways I'm all settled in and decided to hit the gulf coast and see what I could see. I entered Padre Island  National Seashore and drove down along the beach about 15 miles and noticed a couple small gas wells or oil platforms and figured that was about the only structure around so I unloaded and surf launched the revo and pedaled out 2.3 miles out to the first platform. I grabbed a medium heavy bait caster setup and dropped a 6" gulp swimming mullet on a drop shot rig to the bottom right up next to the platform structure...never made it to the bottom before it got slammed. Had a nice fight and was surprised to see a firsty 5-lb-ish Jack of some sort come to the boat... he felt much bigger!
 I started to rebait since the grub's tail was already bitten off when I looked down into the water and saw a Cobia (Locals call them Lings) swimming laps under my boat. I grabbed another rod that was baited with a semi-frozen menhaden and lobbed it overboard. The Cobia inhaled the bait and the fight was on...holy crap, these fish fight HARD! this fish totally disgraces me as it absolutely refused to go in my net.  Measured 32" so its a keeper, but it's pretty small for a Cobia which go over 50 lbs pretty regularly. Pedaled back to the rig and dropped another bait down...There was a big school of amberjack running small bait fish right out of the water all around the rig. Suddenly something huge grabs my bait and just runs straight away from the rig...my boat's not in position, so I kick hard to bring the boat around to try to follow the running beast before he spools me. my drag is cranked down on my Abu 6601 record and I'm thumbing it pretty hard trying to slow this fish down...but it's not working...then suddenly "snap"...I assume teeth finally wore through the 85lb braid. DAMN!!! Kingfish? Blacktip? huge Cobia?
I rig up again and kick back towards the rig and drop a third bait. I see several big shadows in the water below me but I'm not sure what they are...I drop and get hit, then he's off...then he's back on and its off to the races. After several drag peeling runs and an acrobatic leap completely out of the water, I finally get him next to the boat and stick him with the harpoon right behind the head and it's over. It's a 42" Cobia and hands down the strongest fish I've ever fought...not counting tuna
I have a 2-fish cobia limit so I decide to pedal in and get these fish on ice...they're supposed to be excellent eating. This was supposed to be an exploratory day-drip and I wasn't really expecting much action so I didn't have any of my cameras...no video to share, just a couple stills from my cell phone. I'll be back again very soon with heavier gear, steel leaders, live bait and the GoPros

Killing me Gordon!! In shorts non the less!! That's a Jack Crevalle. Fun as hell, but no good on the table. Spanish mackerel smoke up and make amazing dips. Cobia (ling ling) are just plain F'ing delicious! Awesome stuff! Will be fishing vicariously through you for a while ;-)

That's a pretty excellent fishing report. 
Hope to see LOTS more pictures and tales from the Gulf Coast...but make your pictures bigger when posting, they look like thumbnails at this resoltuion...you can go bigger...definitely, bigger is good.

Shorts in October...pfff.

  Sounds like retirement is agreeing with you Gordon. Well done on the exploration. Keep sending out more.......

That's a pretty excellent fishing report. 
Hope to see LOTS more pictures and tales from the Gulf Coast...but make your pictures bigger when posting, they look like thumbnails at this resoltuion...you can go bigger...definitely, bigger is good.

Shorts in October...pfff.

HA! Wait til he sends a pic like that in Feburary.

...make your pictures bigger when posting, they look like thumbnails at this resoltuion...you can go bigger...definitely, bigger is good.

I know...like I said, I didn't have any of my cameras with me as it was just an exploratory trip...pulled these images off my cell phone. I'm headed down there again next week and will take some video.

Fantastic! The stuff our dreams are made of. Thank so much for sharing & what a blast! I'm fishing Baja next month so if you have any suggestions on bait rigging it would be much appreciated. Keep em coming!
HH

Awesome stuff! Will be fishing vicariously through you for a while ;-)

Gimme a break Dick, I've been sitting here watching you guys slay Kings and Coho for the past couple months...and the Chums are right around around the corner!

if you have any suggestions on bait rigging it would be much appreciated. Keep em coming!

If I learned anything, it's that you just don't know what you're gonna hook into out there, so use gear twice as heavy as what you think you'll need...It would have been an entirely different day if I'd had a heavier rod and a steel leader. By the way, there was a guy camped on the beach near me who caught a 5' black tip and a 7.5' bull shark from the shore that night...he said he got a 9' tiger shark there a few weeks back.

Good luck on your adventure and take lots of pictures and video!

Sounds like a blast!  I'm headed down that way now as the wife and I are PCS'ing to Hood.  We should meet up and tackle the new fishery. 

Sounds like a blast!  I'm headed down that way now as the wife and I are PCS'ing to Hood.  We should meet up and tackle the new fishery.

Have fun in 3rd Cav. We just finished updating their fleet.

Try a white 2oz bucktail jig on bottom structure. It'll catch everything from top to bottom.