Ten miles off the Mississippi coast and within sight of Cat Island, Capt. Mike Moore www.Biloxifishing.com dropped anchor, started a chum line and threw out a couple of heavy rods tipped with bait. He hadn’t picked this spot at random. We were between a couple of buoys and near a triangle of oil and natural gas pipeline, which also serves as fish attracting structure. Moore hoped to raise some fish with the chum line.
He was fishing for sharks and when the first fish hit we thought it was a shark until it flashed near the surface.
“Cobia!” Moore yelled. “Get that fish in the boat.”
Mike Jones had the rod and wrestled the fish to the transom, where Moore hauled it on board with the help of a gaff. We added another cobia and a black tipped shark before heading in around noon.
The folks on the Mississippi Coast want you to know that’s there no oil in sight and state coastal waters are open for fishing (federal waters remain closed but are rumored to be re-opened soon). No one, however, is pretending that 200 million gallons of spilled oil won’t at least have some lingering effects. There are many unknowns. What is known? The coast is clean and open for business. Fishing is good. At least it was Thursday.
The cobia and shark provided the main course for dinner Thursday evening at the Manhattan grill www.manhattangrill_os@yahoo.com in nearby Ocean Springs. Delicious.
The Outdoor Notebook 