46 Mississippi Sportsman^ | April 2015
Capt. Robert Earl McDaniel was doing the cobia two-step, a
ritual similar to that of a rain dance, on the back deck of his boat
that was anchored in 8 feet of water about 10 miles south of Mis-
sissippi’s Gulf Coast.
“Native Americans have their dances, and I have mine — and
this one is to call up a big, fat cobia,” said McDaniel, of Whipas-
napa Charters in Biloxi. “We got a nice chum slick running with
the current down this long bar, and we just need a cobia to find
it.
“Just one, or maybe two. I’m not selfish; I don’t need but a cou-
ple of bites, and the chances are good that they will be brutes.”
McDaniel, who is known for his ability to find and catch giant
sow red snapper, might be even better at chumming up spawn-
ing cobia — aka lemonfish or ling — as they migrate along the
northern Gulf of Mexico.
His boat and tactics produced the state-record cobia, a 106-
pound, 13-ounce chunk caught in 1996 by his brother Randy
McDaniel during a local cobia tournament.
“Every year in the spring, I start tracking the migration by check-
ing the fishing reports over in Florida,” the captain said. “They
show up in Destin first, then move west off Pensacola and we’reBaitfish bonanza
April puts cobia
on the bars
David A. Brown