Specimen Painted Ray – 11th February 2012

Rock Hunter from the South coast tell us Saturday morning was very calm with a southerly wind that gradually increased in strength through the day. He decided to fish on East Cork beach for a few hours up to high tide. He got to the beach just after 6.00 pm. There was a nice surf. It was a cloudy dark night with a fairly strong onshore breeze so he was hopeful of a good session. He set up two rods both baited with crab on pennel pulleys. As he was targeting bass he lobbed both baits out a short distance into the breaking surf. About half an hour later he noticed a few small tugs on one of the rods. he picked it up, felt another tug and struck. He felt something heavy on the end, but it didn’t feel like a bass. At first he thought he had just snagged a big clump of kelp but when he got it into the shallow surf he realized there was definitely a big fish on the end as it began to pull strongly. Then as he hauled it out of the foam he saw a good size Painted Ray flapping on the beach. However, it was only when he weighed it at 11.5 lb he realized he had a specimen fish.

Specimen Painted Ray
Specimen Painted Ray

He took a few photos and quickly released it.

About half an hour later he had a very sharp tug on the other rod. He grabbed the rod and felt a strong fighting fish on the end. There was no doubtling what it was this time and a few minutes later he slid a 4 lb, 54 cm bass on to the shingle.  High tide was at 8.00 pm, he fished on for another hour until the tide started to drop and then pack up. He was happy with that session, only two fish, but two quality fish!!!

RockHunter
rockhunter-southcoastbass.blogspot.com

Bass on the rocks
Bass on the rocks