May Ray in the Bay

An early evening launch today and we were soon making the most of the light and sun we had left to target a few bream. Light spinning rods deployed we sat back and waited for the bream to find the baits.
They were a lot thinner on the ground today, rather than constant action they came through in flurries for 10 minute intervals.

As the bream weren't constantly nailing the baits it gave a few other bottom dwelling species a chance to find them. The first one to pick up my squid baits intended for bream came in the shape of a 10lb 8oz thornback. Now, on a spinning rod and in the full flow of the tide run it took me nearly 15 minutes to get it to the net....Dave had a good chuckle at me trying to make headway with it but eventually she gave herself up.

No sooner than I had slipped her back, Dave bent into a Ray on his spinning gear.....I was just about to start laughing at his predicament when my second light rod bent double and started spewing line from the reel.....Ray on each then! In fits of hysterics we coaxed our fish to the boat. They turned out to be a pair of Painteds, Dave's one male and mine female - and bigger ;-)

As I flipped mine over to remove the hook I noticed she was starting to push out an egg case (mermaid's purse). I lowered her back in very gently to continue where she had left off.....with her man following close behind!

We continued to catch bream in short spells along with mackerel and a few garfish.

We moved for the ebb tide and as it got dark we became plagued with pout and dogfish. We managed a couple of strap congers and just before we left, Dave found a nice thornback just over 10lb. Luckily for him the light rods had been put to bed at this point!

An interesting evening with a bit of variety thrown in for good measure!