Guide Joe Ward said fishermen can get away with bright, almost unnatural colors on baits destined for a cobia’s jaw because of the gregarious nature of the fish.
“They are very inquisitive. I’ll use red, red/white, pink and orange – anything loud,” he said. “Sound doesn’t seem to bother ‘em; you can bang around your boat and fish will still come to it.”
Guide Ken Dempsey is also partial to bright colors, but he came to them quite by accident.
“I have a lot of yellow-orange bucktails, real bright – somebody gave ‘em to me,” he said. “They were so bright, I threw ‘em up on the dashboard of my truck so the sun could fade ‘em a little. And then, the cobia loved them.”
One school of thought is that the orange is a shade that cobia may associate with crabs, so that a flash of orange dropped in front of a cobia that isn’t even hungry may still draw a strike.
Dempsey is as particular about the kind of bucktail he uses as having an orange one tied on.
“I like a bucktail with a squid-style head – anything that’s a little bit flatter that will make the bait plane a little when you’re working it, keep it up on top,” he said.
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