Okaloosa Island pier catch

Local angler and deckhand aboard the Realin’ Script, Johnny Pearman, hauled in a 31-pound cobia off the Okaloosa Island Pier Thursday morning before the rain.

Pearman said he caught the cobia on a mackerel leader using a herring for bait.

“I caught it on first cast,” he said. “I thought it was a shark, until it came out of the water.”

His cobia was the second caught off the Okaloosa Island Pier this season.