A THINKING MAN’S COBIA TOURNAMENT

Posted: May 5, 2009

This last Saturday, the Hilton Head and Beaufort Sportfishing clubs held a joint “North versus South of the Broad Cobia Challenge Cup” fishing tournament which had some radically different rules which emphasized catch and release and research help for the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. The winners were determined on the number of points they accumulated throughout the day and then the Challenge Cup winner was based on the average number of points per boat entered by the North and South of the Broad.

We had two boats out in the Broad River and Port Royal Sound with large livewell tanks and marine biologists on board to collect brood stock for SCDNR’s Waddell Mariculture Center. If a captain hooked up a 30 plus pound cobia and called it in to the committee boat, the biologists would motor up next to him and net his catch and move it right into the livewell. This whole process usually took less than ten minutes. The cobia was then monitored by the biologists in circulating, oxygenated water until it could be safely transported to Waddell. A captain could earn 3 points per pound for donating the fish. If the captain decide to gaff his cobia for meat and weighed it in at the end of the day, he earned only 2 points per pound. Thus a captain donating a 40 pound cobia (usually a female fish) could only be beaten by a 61 pound gaffed fish.

As there are usually a number of marginal or undersized fish caught, for which SCDNR has little research data on, a captain could earn 20 points for safely releasing a fish and calling it in and could earn 40 points per fish if he clipped a DNA sample and released it. All of the boats were given a DNA collection kit containing small vials for the clipping. Many of the Hilton Head charter captains use their kits throughout the year for both cobia and red drum.

The captains were required to use tuna circle hooks with monofilament leader which generally hooks the cobia in the corner of the mouth and is easily removed. It goes without saying that we expect our participants to be honest but the biologists did alert them that they would be able to tell if a captain submits more than one DNA sample from the same fish. How embarrassing for a captain to be nailed by CSI-SCDNR.

Because the captains were calling in their reports to me, as the committee boat, I was able to keep track of the approximate point standings throughout the day and the captains had to strategize about what they would do with their next fish. One captain who gaffed his fish early in the day rather than donating it for brood stock lost $250. Another captain who had a charter that decided he wanted the meat lost $500.

As a result of the tournament, we got valuable brood stock for Waddell, got DNA samples from fish that had to be released, killed fewer fish and had a format that challenged your mind rather than your gaff. We did make sure though that all the fish that were killed were autopsied by the biologists for age, gender, stomach contents, size and DNA.

We hope that this catch, release and research style tournament becomes more popular here in Beaufort County as it has in other states. We will never know what kind of impact we are having on our spawning cobia population until we do our homework and help SCDNR’s marine biologists. This is a great way for all fishermen to invest in the protection and future of their sport, have some challenging fun and make some money.