20 
Joseph W. Smith 
be one of the few teleosts that regularly consumed small elasmobranchs. 
Field inspections and histological sections of cobia gonads indicated 
that most adult cobia were developing and\or ripe as they entered 
North Carolina waters in spring. Males became sexually mature by 
60-65 cm (age 2), and females by 80 cm (age 2). Richards (1967) 
stated that the smallest mature male in his collections measured 51.8 
cm (“second. ...year of life”) and that the smallest mature female measured 
69.6 cm (“third year of life”), but he did not include maturity schedules. 
Cobia spawned in North Carolina coastal waters from May through 
July, with peak spawning in June. In Virginia waters, cobia spawned 
mid-June through mid-August, as determined by ichthyoplankton surveys 
(Joseph et al. 1964). In the northern Gulf of Mexico, cobia arrived 
in coastal waters during April and May in prespawning condition and 
exhibiting peak gsi values (Biesiot et al. 1994). Some female cobia 
collected during June in North Carolina showed follicular atresia in 
the ovaries indicative of a recent spawn, yet also had numerous and 
adjacent, large oocytes, suggesting another potential spawning event. 
Data on ova diameters presented by Richards (1967) and work by 
Thompson et al. (1991) and Biesiot et al. (1994) in the northern Gulf 
of Mexico support the concept of batch spawning in cobia. 
Precise location of cobia spawning areas along the North Carolina 
coast was uncertain, although my results suggested that cobia spawned 
adjacent the state’s major ocean inlets. Likewise, Joseph et al. (1964) 
found that cobia spawned off the mouth of Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. 
Collections of cobia eggs in the Gulf Stream off Cape Hatteras, North 
Carolina, by Hassler and Rainville (1975) (almost 2,000 eggs in 10 
collecting trips, May-June 1974) contrast an inlet spawning area hypothesis. 
In summary, cobia inhabited coastal sounds and inlet areas of 
North Carolina from May through July. Specimens greater than 15 
kg were common, hence the species’ popularity with inshore recreational 
anglers. Cobia consumed a variety of demersal crustaceans and fishes; 
of the former, the blue crab was the most important. Spawning probably 
peaked during June in ocean waters adjacent major inlets. Management 
regulations adopted by North Carolina in 1991 prohibiting possession 
of cobia less than 84 cm were effective, and few fish below the minimum 
possession size were encountered between 1991 and 1994. Migratory 
routes and overwintering grounds of cobia along the south Atlantic 
coast of the United States are unclear. Comprehensive tagging of cobia 
along the south Atlantic coast of the United States and in Chesapeake 
Bay would help clarify (1) coast-wide migration patterns, (2) ingress 
and egress from estuaries to ocean, (3) fidelity to specific estuaries, 
and (4) movements into the northern Gulf of Mexico. 
