PENDING AUSTRALIAN RECORD COBIA – by Andrew Sprenger

A large bull shark appeared to my right. “I must keep an eye on that”, I thought as I descended to deeper ground. A group of eagle rays were milling not far away. As I glanced back at the lurking shark though the rays cleared and instead of the shark I expected to see, I saw the distinctive head of a GIANT black kingfish (cobia)! I powered towards the fish and placed a shot straight in its head. It twitched, and rolled over – stoned dead. I shot to the surface at the same time as my dive partner, Kurt.“What the bloody hell are you doing shooting bull sharks?!” he yelled, “oh well, at least you stoned it I guess…” I laughed and said “just watch me pull it up mate”. As the fish came into view though Kurt’s jaw dropped and he began to laugh at the realisation that it was a just a big cobia! I hauled it into the boat as we marvelled at the pending Australian record 44kg black kingfish.