Cobia in Sebastian, Florida

Cobia pass Sebastian Inlet on a seasonal migration, moving south and offshore in late fall and winter and returning north along the coast in warmer months, with local catches reported from spring through November.

NOAA Fisheries describes the pattern on its cobia species page: cobia migrate seasonally in the Atlantic and Gulf, and along the Atlantic coast they move south and offshore toward warmer waters during the late fall and winter. Their spawning season runs from late June to mid-August in the Southeast, when they spawn several times in coastal bays and estuaries. Sebastian sits on that Atlantic route, between Brevard and Indian River County beaches.

The Sebastian Inlet District record is thin but spread across the year. Its reports mention cobia on offshore reefs in April, from the beach in July when mullet run, at the jetty tip in late August and on the north jetty in late November. FWC notes that the species is found in nearshore and inshore waters with inlets and bays, which is why an inlet like Sebastian sees them at all.

District reports from 2025 and 2026 record a 50 to 60 pound cobia on the north jetty in November 2025 and a short 33-inch fish released at the tip in August 2026.

The November catch was a surprise. In the report for the week of November 24, 2025, the district's guide wrote that a nice 50 to 60-pound cobia was caught on an artificial lure on a Saturday morning on the north jetty at Sebastian Inlet, during a weekend when the incoming high tide produced most of the action. Late November fits the NOAA description of cobia moving south along the Atlantic coast in late fall.

Late summer brought a smaller fish. For the week of August 24, 2026, the district reported a 33-inch cobia caught on a live mullet at the tip on the outgoing tide, which had to be released because cobia must be 36 inches to keep. That catch came during the NOAA spawning window and a week when the district described warm water and plenty of baitfish at Sebastian Inlet.

The beach is a third setting. In the report for the week of July 14, 2025, the guide advised surf anglers to watch for schools of bait, mullet and glass minnows and wrote that he had seen king mackerel and cobia caught from the beach in the Sebastian Inlet area when the mullet are around.

A cobia of 50 pounds off the Sebastian Inlet north jetty calls for far heavier line and leader than the surf rigs used for whiting and pompano, and heavy rods and jigs of that class are among the saltwater tackle on Digital Towns Market. Digital Towns Market is our marketplace.

Off Sebastian, cobia hold around structure, offshore reefs and ledges, channel buoys and pilings, and around large animals such as rays, sharks and turtles.

A spring district report gives the offshore picture. In its report for the week of April 11 (the page does not state the year), the Sebastian Inlet District said cobia are being reported on the 50 to 80 foot reefs and ledges, caught on sardines and live pilchards or on medium-sized jigs, and that not many had been seen around the large rays along the beaches. Florida State Parks notes that boat launch facilities at Sebastian Inlet State Park provide access to nearby offshore fishing and diving.

Structure explains the inshore catches. FWC's cobia profile says cobia are frequently found around buoys, pilings and wrecks in inlets and bays, and NOAA lists buoys, debris, shipwrecks and artificial reefs as well as sharks, turtles and stingrays as the structures cobia follow. At Sebastian Inlet, the district maintains the channel markers: most are fixed on posts in the water, and a few are numbered floating buoys secured by anchors. The district gives the north jetty a length of about 1,000 feet and the south jetty about 575 feet, rock structure that runs into the Atlantic on both sides of the channel.

Natural reef lies close to shore south of the inlet. Divers working for the district surveyed hardbottom along nine transects in a beach placement area that runs from near the McLarty Treasure Museum to just south of the Ambersand beach access, with the district describing hardbottom as exposed limestone within 400 meters of shore in water up to about 13 feet deep that supports macroalgae, invertebrates, fishes and sea turtles. Those shore-parallel rock bands are the kind of nearshore habitat where sea turtles and baitfish gather off the Indian River County beaches.

Cobia near Sebastian commonly run 10 to 50 pounds, FWC says, and the 50 to 60 pound fish from the north jetty in November 2025 was at the top of that common range.

For the Sebastian Inlet catch, the FWC profile lists cobia, also known as ling or lemonfish, at up to 6 feet and 150 pounds, common from 10 to 50 pounds, with an average of 30 pounds and large fish in the 50 to 80 pound class caught often enough to be noted. NOAA gives a length of up to 6 feet, a weight of up to 100 pounds and a life span of up to 12 years, with females maturing at age 3 and males at age 2. Each time they spawn, females release between 375,000 and 2 million eggs.

Identification at the Sebastian Inlet jetties starts with the head and stripe. FWC describes a long, slim fish with a broad, depressed head, a dark lateral stripe through the eye to the tail and a lower jaw that projects past the upper jaw, and lists the remora, which has a sucker disk on top of its head, as the look-alike. Cobia feed on crabs, squid and small fishes, and FWC recommends live crabs and small fish as baits kept near the surface, which matches the live mullet that took the August 2026 fish at the inlet tip.

Sebastian boaters reach the inlet and the offshore ledges from two city ramps on Indian River Drive and from ramps on both sides of Sebastian Inlet State Park.

The City of Sebastian runs the Yacht Club ramp at 820 Indian River Drive, a dual concrete ramp just north of Riverview Park that the city says gives quick access across the waterway to Sebastian Inlet and the deep Atlantic. Its second public ramp, at Main Street Park where Main Street meets Indian River Drive just east of U.S. Highway 1, is described by the city as a short ride across the Intracoastal to the inlet and the Atlantic.

From the barrier island side, Florida State Parks lists boat ramps on both sides of Sebastian Inlet State Park, with access to the Indian River Lagoon, the Intracoastal Waterway, the Sebastian River and the Atlantic. The 50 to 80 foot reefs and ledges named in the district's April report lie well offshore of the jetties, so the cobia season there belongs mostly to boaters, while jetty and surf anglers depend on fish that move close to Sebastian Inlet with the bait.

FWC requires cobia caught at Sebastian to measure at least 36 inches fork length, with a limit of 1 per person or 2 per vessel, whichever is less.

The FWC cobia regulations apply the same size and bag limits in Gulf and Atlantic state waters and in federal waters, so a cobia caught on the Sebastian Inlet jetty and one caught on an offshore ledge face the same 36 inch fork length minimum. Spears and gigs are allowed for cobia along with hook and line, seines and cast nets. On a boat with three or more anglers, the 2 per vessel cap governs.

Management of the fish passing Sebastian splits at the state line north of Florida. NOAA states that NOAA Fisheries and the Gulf Council manage cobia on the east coast of Florida, while the Atlantic migratory group from Georgia through New York is managed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. Last verified: October 10, 2026, on the FWC cobia regulations page.