While Buddy Bizzell usually prefers live or cut menhaden for cobia bait, he said cobia aren’t picky about what they eat. A number of other baits are good choices.
Crabs are good baits, and live eels are tough to beat at times, though they are a bit tricky to deal with. A variety of artificial lures are also good.
Bigger Gulp soft plastics will catch cobia, and Savage Gear’s Sandeels are also good bets. The Guidessecret Striper Slider plug is also a good one.
If fishing off the beaches, one of the best ways to find cobia is to motor along slowly, parallel to the shore, looking for schools of menhaden, which will look like big, dark mounds. It’s common to find cobia swimming directly under those schools of baitfish.
Casting any bait or lure into these schools or on their outside edges will often draw a cobia strike. Bizzell said you can sometimes see cobia and watch them refuse the same lure or bait over and over, only to suddenly smash the same offering. His point? With cobia, persistence and patience are just as important — if not more so — than they are when targeting any other fish.
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