Cobb's Island, Virginia
DESCRIPTION.
COBB'S ISLAND, Virginia, is a genuine sportsman's paradise, if there is one in America. There is shooting or fishing every week in the year. The bathing is unsurpassed. The boating is perfect. The game and the fish never fail. The air is pure and invigorating. The breezes are cool and delightful. The Island proper is only a little sand-bar of about fifty acres, nine miles out at sea from the Cape Charles Peninsula. Just one hundred yards in front of the hotel is the ocean. A hundred yards behind it is the Broadwater Bay, nine miles wide and fifty miles long. At low tide this bay is a vast stretch of marsh mud flats, sand-bars, creeks, and channels. At high tide it is a beautiful land-locked sheet of water. The rise and fall of the tide over this vast acreage of shallows makes it the finest fishing and hunting grounds on the South Atlantic.
FAMOUS FIFTY YEARS.
THE ISLAND has been famous for fifty years as a quiet resort that never fails to satisfy the soul of a sportsman, or the tired brain-worker in search of perfect isolation and the effects of a sea voyage on an earth foundation. People who go to Cobb's once and stay a week invariably contract the Cobb's Island habit; they go every year; you couldn't keep them away with a stick.
THE FISHING.
THE fishing from Cobb's is the best on the Atlantic Coast. The season begins the 1st of May and lasts till November. The accompanying cut is a photograph showing a day's catch of red drum by two of the best fishermen who own cottages on the Island. This catch was made July 5th, 1894, at the close of the drum season. Twenty-five red drum, weighing 750 pounds, were landed with rod and reel in two hours and ten minutes. The principal fish caught are the Black and Red Drum, the Bluefish, Trout (Weakfish), Spots, Hog Fish, and Mullets. Shark fishing in deep water is also a favorite amusement with some.
THE HUNTING.
THE Spring hunting season begins the last week in April and lasts till the middle of June. The summer season begins the 10th of July and lasts into September. Every variety of snipe and plover that use on the Atlantic Seaboard are found here. The Curlew is the king of the summer game birds, and this is his favorite ground. The winter hunting season begins in November and lasts till April. Ducks, brant, and Geese are here in tens of thousands.
ACCOMMODATIONS.
MESSRS. COBB AND SPADY, the proprietors of the hotel , have secured a fine cook for the coming season, and hope to set a table that will be equal to the other advantages offered by the Island. The hotel is old fashioned, but the rooms are large and comfortable, and every effort is made to make people feel at home.
THE NEW STEAMER.
THE accompanying cut shows the new and elegant Naphtha Steamer that has been built in New York for the Cobb's Island service. She is forty feet long, swift and safe, and equipped with every convenience for the comfort of passengers. She makes the trip across the Bay from Cobb's Island landing in fifty minutes.
THE PEOPLE WHO GO.
THESE people are of the best and brainiest folks from nearly every State in the Union, who are looking for perfect freedom, rest, and sport. Judges, lawyers, doctors, preachers, statesmen, business men, tired and worn with their work, find here their ideal situation. People dress well who desire it, but a hunting suit at the dinner-table excites no comment. People simply dress and live as they please, and take things easily.
BOATS AND BOATMEN.
THE sailors, whose swift English-rigged boats skim over the waters in search of fish and game, are polite, good-tempered, genial fellows, who live on the Island because they love its life. Their charges are moderate, and the service they render expert.
NO LAND BREEZES.
IT is commonly supposed by Northern people that Cobb's Island is a hot place in summer, because it is in the south. This is a mistake. Remember, it is only a fifty-acre plot of ground nine miles out at sea, continually swept by refreshing breezes, and absolutely free from malaria, and a mosquito cannot stay except when there is no breeze. There are no land breezes, for the sun rises and sets in the water.
HOW TO GET THERE.
THE Island is reached from Cobb's Station, on the New York, Philadelphia, and Norfolk railroad (Cape Charles route), a part of the great Pennsylvania System. There are two trains daily (nine hours) from New York, and two trains daily from Norfolk and Old Point on the South. Hacks meet all trains.