~ STORY BEHIND THE DAY ~ EPISODE FIVE “TALKING COBIA WITH TOM ROWLAND”
March 10, 2021 ~ Key West, FL
Nick Biondoletti - For this episode I decided that since we had got so much awesome footage from an Into the Blue TV shoot in Key West last week I would go ahead and have Tom Rowland narrate a voice over from the trip. We went out with the guys to film the show and for a couple days couldn’t seem to get away from the massive schools of Cobia. It was insane! Growing up here in the Florida Keys I have seen a lot of Cobia and been fortunate enough to catch them. Let me tell you, these few days in Key West were unreal. I have never seen so many Cobia in that short amount of time. So usually when we are filming the show it is myself and Dan Diez on the main cameras, and underwater videographer and Key West native Jake Perry, Drone/Photographer best in the world Jason Stemple and Tom Rowland who produces and directs the show. When we are out there if we have covered enough fishing to get a show we like to throw a couple guys over on the Talent boat with Steve Rodger and Scott Walker to cover the fishing from their POV and get some more creative detailed shots of fish. Well when this happens we usually drift off on Jake Perrys boat which we use as the camera boat. Its a 90’s Whitewater with twin 250 Mercs, an absolute machine and it has seen more things than any other boat I think in the Key West area. If it could talk i’m sure you would hear things that no one on this planet has ever heard about fishing. When we drifted off Tom and I were messing around trying to get some cool footage of the Cobia eating live Pilchards right next to the boat. Tom would throw some live ones out grab the GoPro and shoot the fish underwater. We got to a point where we decided why not try and free gaff one of these big Cobia. When Tom put the GoPro down and grabbed the gaff the fish seemed to know that hook, it was like they have seen the trick before. So instead of free gaffing one tom grabbed a rod with a bucktail jig hooked on a live pilchard and within second the fight was on. Pulling frag bending the rod, Jason had the drone up and I was filming on my camera. Tom got the fish boat side and Jake stuck the gaff in him, lifted him over the rail and got him into the boat. Working with this crew and being able to do some of the things we take for granted being that we have all lived down here and experienced these things so much, for some reason this was a special day. I don’t know if its because of the amount of fish we saw and were able to capture in so many different ways or if we just were having so much fun doing what we love. Either way the day was a blast and we ended up getting a great show for Into the Blue and along with that a cool episode for Guides and Tides!!
School of Cobia swimming up to Jake Perry as he was filming in the water behind the 36 Yellowfin.