Gone Fishin' 3

[weepete]

A long, hilly walk in but a beautiful day by the sea

Gone Fishin' 3 by wee_pete, on Flickr

We were catching these:
Thornback Ray by wee_pete, on Flickr

And I got a new PB with one 12lb 13oz so I'm delighted and made the tough walk back a bit easier!

 

[Jeff15]

Nice fish............

 

[Flying Panda]

Awesome captures Pete - I especially love the clairity of these images. The stingray's eye is mesmerizing.

 

[Jeff G]

I'd sure hate to step on one of those barefoot! Nice shots.

 

[weepete]

Nice fish............

Thanks Jeff, the thorns make handiling them a bit of a challenge, as they can be on the underside as well.

Awesome captures Pete - I especially love the clairity of these images. The stingray's eye is mesmerizing.

Thanks Flying Panda, one of the joys of being out is the often stunning scenery and beautiful light that can happen, sometimes spontaiously and unexpected. We fished from dawn to dusk, so 8:00am till around 4pm. The thornbacks are stunning, pre-historic looking creatures that can be patterned very well ranging from dark grey to mottled and some have false eyes on their wings. A very rare albino ray was recently caught in England, with no pigment it was white with pink frindging and often reffered to as a "ghost" fish

I'd sure hate to step on one of those barefoot! Nice shots.

Thanks Jeff, thankfully they are pretty shy creatures and unlike stingrays won't sit on the bottom amongst swimmers, they'll scarper at the first sign of activity so it's incredably unlikely to step on one.

 

[weepete]

Here's a shot from my species hunt of the big one I caught, where you can see the tail a bit better:

Big Thornie by wee_pete, on Flickr

 

[PJM]

Great shots! Looks like an awesome day there.

 

[K9Kirk]

Nice set! Good to see a ray in here once in awhile. A few years back a guy caught one locally on 200 lb. test and it took him nearly a half hour to it haul in. That pole was doubled over big time and it wore the guy out. When he finally beached it, it was at least 5 ft across and around 150 lbs. The guy was real nervous about taking the hook out so he cut the barb on it, pulled the hook and then he released it. That one really bothered me, he could've simply pulled it back into the water and cut the line. The hooks work themselves out in time.

 

[weepete]

Great shots! Looks like an awesome day there.

Thanks PJM, the day was beautiful with a couple of storms passing overhead and the rain with them but for most of the day the sun was shining.

Nice set! Good to see a ray in here once in awhile. A few years back a guy caught one locally on 200 lb. test and it took him nearly a half hour to it haul in. That pole was doubled over big time and it wore the guy out. When he finally beached it, it was at least 5 ft across and around 150 lbs. The guy was real nervous about taking the hook out so he cut the barb on it, pulled the hook and then he released it. That one really bothered me, he could've simply pulled it back into the water and cut the line. The hooks work themselves out in time.

Yeah, we have some big rays here in Scotland though the British record is 21lb for thornbacks and anything over 10lb is not common for that species. The big boys round here are skate, with the record being a 300lb specimen caught off Ireland. They regularly get them from the boats at 200lbs+. The record for shore caught is a whopping 225lbs, though they are difficult to land as often the places you can catch them are remote and impossible to land a fish that size.

I know what you mean about cutting the barb, that would have bothered me too. It used to be a common thing to do with spiney dogfish (aka spurdog) but thankfully good handling amongst anglers has increased here and it's very rare nowadays.

 

[edsland]

Nice shots, my son caught a couple sting rays by Charleston this year. They are real neat fish.