48 Mississippi Sportsman^ | April 2015
fish’s behavior over the past decade. “Used to be, they’d like water
anywhere from 7 to 10 feet, but after Katrina it seems like they
are a little deeper, like 10 to 15 feet.”
Nearly 20 years after his brother broke the record, chumming
for cobia remains McDaniel’s passion.
“I still love doing that,” he said on March 1. “It is still a passion, so
much so that I’ve already got the fever and can hardly wait. I’ve
changed a little bit in where I go now, heading more south of
Chandeleur, even though I still go to my old spots around Horn
Island.
“One reason why I’m keyed up so much for the coming season
is that I had such a good year last year on the bars. We caught a
lot of fish, and a lot of good fish. I’ve got that fresh on my mind.”
The big difference between what the Florida fishermen do and
the way McDaniel and other Mississippi Coast anglers fish for
cobia is that in Florida’s clear waters, most of the fish are spotted
from the high bridges of boats and then chased down.
In Mississippi’s typically dirty water that is rarely possible.
“We chum,” McDaniel said. “We anchor up on a long (under-
water sandbar) and we start a chum line working. I’ve got my
freezer already filled with pogies that I caught last fall. I like to use
the small pogies in my chum churn because they are oiler than
the bigger, meatier ones.
“I go every fall in the bay and net as many as I can, and freeze
them to use the next spring. Saves me money and it saves me
time and it brings fish to the boat.”After anchoring and putting his chum to work, McDaniel uses a
variety of lines to work on the cobia.
“I use live baits for cobia, obviously, and that includes hardhead
catfish,” he said. “We usually fish between six and eight of them at
a time at scattered lengths behind the boat on the bottom. The
big sharks and redfish tend to leave the hardheads be, so we use
hardheads so we don’t spend so much time on them.
“But we catch most of our cobia on either live eels or live croak-
ers fished closer to the boat on the surface. We free float some
and we use some under balloons.”
McDaniel means business, especially in tournaments.
“We use some heavy gear to get the cobia,” he said. “I like a 6/0
reel, 80-pound-test mono and either 100- or 130-pound mono
leaders. I don’t worry about using fluorocarbon leader that much
because with live bait they usually don’t care. They’re going to
eat it.”
McDaniel changes a few things for charter trips.
“I use the same gear, but then we don’t do anything to hinder
the bite from sharks or redfish,” he said. “It’s hard to make a cobia
bar trip for a charter because you’re only looking at a one-, two-
or three-bite trip. My customers are just as happy to be reeling in
a bull redfish or a 100-pound shark.
“We catch a lot of those bar fishing, if we want to, and it can be
fun.” ■5-Star Gold Certified Yamaha Service Center
with over 75 years combined experience★★★★★378 Reynoir Street • Biloxi, MS 39530 • (228) 435-3389
NauticStar 214XTS
G3 V322C
“In Business Since 1960”SEVEN C’S MARINE
April puts continued