Chunking the Dog

[Thrillseeker]

Fished the Hot Dog Sunday seems like the hot spot the past couple of weeks chunking. Plus the weather was supposed to be a little bad. Got to the dog and as expected everybody was there. New boat only has 150 anchor rope so we had to drift decided to stay outside the fleet so we didn't drift into anybody. Picked up a nice 60/70lb. YFT. Did several more drifts when over the radio someone kept saying that the 6 boats just north of the fleet were all hooked up. After hearing the troller say it 4 or 5 times we decided to go check it out everybody in the fleet probably was laughing when we picked up and headed north after the radio report when we got there just like the guy said everybody was hooked up we got our second YFT soon as we dropped in another 60lb.
then we got hit hard on a live spot. I decided to fight this on I usually drive/ leader/ gaff The fish easily spooled a Penn 30 wide we picked up and chased it for an hour it spooled the 30 4 times before we could get it 75 feet from the boat it looked like a couple hundred pound Manta Ray Could not get it any closer After 15 minutes of full drag it broke off I never seen or heard of them begin around here. Another wild time offshore on a day I thought would be called off because of the weather.

[icculus81]

I don't think it was a Manta Ray, they are filter feeders. I still don't know what it was, it ate a live spot.

[27 sailfish]

Not sure what type of Ray you guys hooked but years ago - it was not unheard of to hook big 6-7 foot across Rays while shark fishing near Jackspot.

Heard many got killed by accident by trawl netters so we do not see them as much.

One shark fisherman hooked the same Ray three times in one day. The Ray had an odd fin so they could recognize it.

Congrats on some nice YFT - way to break the new ride in.

[TUNAMELT]

I caught a ray also , It was about 200 lb and took me 1 hr to get it 5 foot from the boat then i buttoned down the drag and snapped the 30 lb leader. It was odd it also hit a live spot. well at least i caught something. oh yea we did get video of it but that's in OC with the go pro. Congrats on the y-fins

[TUNAMELT]

It was a roughtail stingray.

[f26tiger]

Nice going Lair

[Reel Draggin Tackle]

Nice fishing. We snagged a big ray a few years ago. It was three hours before we knew what we had; thought it was the biggest BFT in the world.

[Thrillseeker]

Yea that's what I thought it was too. A huge BFT but after 1/2 hr we knew it was something else nice to know now that it was a big ray
everything big we hooked this year has been on a 30 I used to like 30's better than 50's or 80's because there lighter.
Not no more!

[johnnyo]

Larry good fishing with you, look forward to another ride soon if you'll have me:) J

[Water_boy]

We've hooked a bunch of rays while chunking, my friend calls it natures version of the 5 gallon bucket trick. I think they just run into the line as they swim and get snagged when the hook reaches them. The hard part is you need to fight it until you see it because you never know...