So we headed to our old bat ray/shovelnose beach where the bait guys said they had seen lots of Ts while catching bait. Picked up some lively chunky dines, no macs which the bait guy seem genuinely sorry he could not provide, but it is what it is. Building a good relationship and reputation with the bait guys at CISCO's has proved worth it. Hit the beach a few minutes before greylight, saw some other's with less gear to unload making their way out as we pulled up. Started setting up and we see them coming back with a nice striper, thing was high 20s or even 30+ should've taken a pic but my phone was packed in. This thing looked like it would have been surf caught up north or in NJ. Promising to say the least since I planned on fishing a float for threshers and a dropper loop for gamefish.
Well the seagulls here were utterly ravenous, chasing the drone with the bait and starting conventions around the floats. Lots of dolphins playing and splashing and even messing with the seagulls. That was my first catch, a damned seagull, luckily the circle was easy to remove but I'm sure he was injured getting dragged 300 yds and going through the washing machine surf that this spot has. Ended up putting a small egg sinker on my leader of the float to keep the bait down and hopefully out of seagull reach. Pat quickly became discouraged by the seagulls and switched to a tri swivel. He got the skunk off and the pleasure of a long crank on this BAT RAYYYY!!!!! I didn't like where this was headed.
Current here was absolutely ripping which made fishing the skinny virtually impossible so the critter rods were ditched pretty early on. All in all it was pretty slow in general, and perhaps those people were smart for taking their nice striper and calling it a day. After a few hours and many lost baits I get a ripper on my dropper loop. I immediately knew it was a ray, but hey skunk off.
It was now past noon and our hopes of catching something nice were beginning to wane as our sleep deprivation kicked in. Just long soaked the float as we piece meal packed it in. As I was cranking the float in from 400 yards (as fun as it sounds) it felt weighty, but no fight, and this beach has almost no kelp. Maybe it was a small tail hooked thresher, I could only hope. In the skinny I couldn't see any sign of a fish and then there she was, my disappointment was immeasurable and my day ruined.
80% joking, I was happy to catch fish, but the two things I don't wanna catch when droning are bat rays and kelp
. So the journey continues but hey the drone got us some fish in conditions that would have been unfishable without it so that's a definite plus! Next time! Anyone with success targeting threshers tips and tricks would be greatly appreciated, also what are any of your experiences catching suspended Bat Rays, maybe that weight was enough to put me at bottom?
