A cobia in the water resembles a shark with its long, tapered body and flattened head. A closer look though, reveals that it is more like a remora, the scavenger fish that hitches rides on larger fish. With a cobia, however, the suction disc on the forehead is missing.
Cobia have a brown back and sides of alternating light and dark lateral stripes.
The belly is white with a brownish tinge. Cobia are found in all Florida coastal waters. They are migratory fish that appear in a given location, usually about the same time every year, and then move on . They usually move in schools, migrating north in the warmer months and back south in the winter. Just where they spend their winters is not known.