How heavy do you all reckon this stingray was?

[Offtherockss]

Hello fellow radiers.

Today I was at the Murrays Beach boat ramp inside Jervis Bay and fished the rockwall next to the ramp. I used a big chunk of tailor fillet as bait on a 6/0 hook connected to a 3-way swivel with a sinker on the other end. The gear I used was a Daiwa Saltist WN rod 8 foot (Max pe 8 XH) with a Penn Spinfisher 9500 Vi spooled with about 450m of 80lb ebay braid. Leader was black magic 130lb monofilament line.

It took about an hour to get a bite, saw the rod bending and the drag very slowly getting pulled out. When I picked up the rod and started the fight, the fish must've realised it has been hooked as it went for a massive run (about 150m or so). When the fish stopped, I tightened the drag nearly to the max (approx 20kg) and started to pump my rod. However, after a minute or two it decided to go for another run, pulling out another 100m of line on max drag. The higlight is towards the end of the fight, the ray came and jumped on the surface a couple times - almost thought it was a marlin or something at first LOL 😂. But soon after my leader gave out and popped . The entire fight lasted about 20 minutes. 

How heavy do you think this ray was? 

Later in the day I had another run in with a big ray using the exact same setup and bait. But this time the fight only lasted about 30 seconds before my mainline above the leader got cut off from the rocks.

The silver lining was that there were big schools of trevallies close to the rock wall. I've caught 3 legal ones and took them home and made sashimi (many and many undersized ones were caught and released). Also big schools of drummers as well, biggest one I saw was around 60-70cm underwater but didn't catch any legal size for them.

Edited November 8, 2021 by Offtherockss

[noelm]

Impossible to say how heavy the Ray was, if you are breaking 130lb leader or 80lb braid you might need to examine your knots. Rays can grow quite big, the huge black ones you see hanging around harbours and the like can be well over 100KG, the Eagle Ray/Bat Ray (the one with the "pointed" wings and high set eyes don't grow as big as the black ones.

[frankS]

There's one that frequents Burmi harbour that would be easy 6 foot across the wind span.

You must be a pretty strong bloke to hold 20kg drag shore based, good thing the line broke or you may have lost the outfit. Or gone for a swim.

Frank

Edited November 8, 2021 by frankS

[slothparade]

I had a simillar experince to that. caught a ray off the warf at the camp site. would have been about 5-6ft across and atleast over 100 kg. took a white bait. there are 2 or so that are resident to that area. we went over them in the kayaks they are massive. 

ran aout 200m over towards the mangroves then ran out to the right then my ling broke. I was using a whole white bait going for flattys or tailor, can rember but yeah hooked onto the bugger 

[noelm]

Yep, there was a couple in Shellharbour that were huge, unfortunately someone caught them and killed them, but there's a couple of smaller ones lurking around now.

[Offtherockss]

3 hours ago, noelm said:

Impossible to say how heavy the Ray was, if you are breaking 130lb leader or 80lb braid you might need to examine your knots. Rays can grow quite big, the huge black ones you see hanging around harbours and the like can be well over 100KG, the Eagle Ray/Bat Ray (the one with the "pointed" wings and high set eyes don't grow as big as the black ones.

I like to use uni knots with about 6 twists. Is this knot not good for heavier lines? If so what knots would you recommend. 

[Offtherockss]

1 hour ago, frankS said:

There's one that frequents Burmi harbour that would be easy 6 foot across the wind span.

You must be a pretty strong bloke to hold 20kg drag shore based, good thing the line broke or you may have lost the outfit. Or gone for a swim.

Frank

I anchored myself between one of the rocks by sitting down with my legs spread forward (my foot was touching the other rocks) and had my rod inbetween my legs. So I wasn't standing up during the fight with my arms doing all the work (I am not that strong haha) 

[Little_Flatty]

43 minutes ago, Offtherockss said:

I anchored myself between one of the rocks by sitting down with my legs spread forward (my foot was touching the other rocks) and had my rod inbetween my legs. So I wasn't standing up during the fight with my arms doing all the work (I am not that strong haha) 

Land based game chair! 🤣

[Rebel]

Great report. Well done.

[JonD]

One of the biggest rays Ive seen was while on scuba, I have pictures somewhere on my main computer, its wingspan as easy 3m and at the highest part just being the head it would of raised 45cm off the sand.

From the sure we regularly hook them up to around 2m but at that size they are to heavy and dangerous to bring from the water to remove hooks. Smaller ones like this one my son caught can be landed pretty quick on 30-40lb braid and 50lb leaders. Breaking the line class you mention is quite surprising as I find my line extremely hard to break even on full lock. When I go to full lock there is no pumping at all, the rod is pointed straight at the ray or shark and I gain line by walking up the beach then reeling as I walk back down and so on.

This ray is about half the size of the one we dived with but these 5-6ft rays are the most common along the shoreline. This one was using an old 6000 stradic and 30lb braid, landed in around 10mins. Most of my beach rods have broken reel seats due to the fish I hook, if your reel seat didn't break under the line class you mention Im very surprised.

[Little_Flatty]

10 hours ago, JonD said:

Most of my beach rods have broken reel seats due to the fish I hook, if your reel seat didn't break under the line class you mention Im very surprised.

Interesting. A weak point that few of us probably ever think about!

[bessell1955]

Very...