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Care to take a wild guess what my subject matter will be this week? A few hints: It's May, it has to do with Port Royal Sound, and last year around this same time I went on a tear about this same subject, which solicited more e-mails and phone calls than just about any column I have written.

If you guessed cobia then bingo, you win!

Not a whole lot has changed in that year, though we are closer to getting regulations changed that may save this unique fishery. On the entire East Coast, Port Royal Sound is the only place where such a migration of cobia occurs. The debate is whether such large numbers of cobia that congregate in Port Royal Sound are here to spawn or not.

I say "yes" because I have had years to watch them interact there. The large cobia, 40 pounds and up, are mostly females and I have seen these large females surrounded by the smaller males that are rolling on top of one of these girls, which sure looks like some loving going on to me. Also from personal experience, just about every big female landed is full of eggs. I believe Port Royal Sound is our watery Las Vegas -- what goes on in Port Royal Sound, stays in Port Royal Sound. (Another parallel between Port Royal Sound and Las Vegas is that both cases, there isn't another place like it.)

The limit is two fish per person, per day. I am slightly encouraged by many of my friends, who seem to have finally accepted that one smaller male fish can feed a whole lot of folks, and they're releasing the big, pregnant females. But the sheer number of boats fishing for these Port Royal cobia increases each year.

This past weekend I didn't fish but rode out to the sound and did a rough count of boats with a pair of binoculars. I stopped counting at 87. Figuring four lines out on each boat, each with a two-treble hook rig, and that comes out to nearly 700 hooks in the water. The boats line up in every strategic area and the cobia have to resist temptation just to make it through.

I would guess the actual number to be far greater than what I counted. Being an avid fisherman since I was 5, I never thought I would feel sorry for a fish. But in the case of cobia in Port Royal, I not only feel sorry for them, I pity them.

As I mentioned, I am encouraged that more and more regulars are releasing fish but there still are those who feel the ocean is theirs for the taking. What blows my mind is that a few of these are charter fishermen. Not all, mind you, just a few who justify killing as many as the law allows each and every day and selling them to restaurants.

Unlike weekend warriors, these captains are out there daily and have catching cobia down to a fine art. You would think that of all the segments of the sport fishing population they would have the most respect for our resources.

So what can you do to help make sure we have a healthy cobia population in Port Royal Sound for generations to come? Sound off! I would love to see a two fish per-boat limit in Port Royal Sound. I would like to see a slot limit that allows the egg-laden females to continue on. And treble hooks? I have found that circle hooks work just as well, if not better, and it sure makes releasing fish safer for you and is without a doubt better for the fish.

I have watched cobia that were too small to keep gaffed and then released. I have watched folks cut the leader, leaving the cobia with two sets of treble hooks connected together by 80-pound test leader stuck in their mouth and face.

What we need is common sense and a realization that this is not an unlimited resource. I have been through the period where roller nets decimated our bottom fishing. I remember when red snapper were nearly wiped out. And these happened in the wide-open ocean. In comparison, Port Royal Sound is a small body of water and to think our unique cobia run there is unlimited and can't be destroyed is naive. If things don't change, and change soon, we're sure going to find out.