LBR

It was spot and stalk, and we had a blast! Conditions were less than ideal--full moon tide meant the tide came in fast and hard, which made the water murky and the shallows got deeper quick. Cloudy day and enough wind to put a ripple on the water made it harder to spot them. We saw tons, but usually only after they were making their (seemed like) 100 mph dash away from us.

Thanks to Captain Danney Allen we managed to boat five in the 30-40# range--under decent conditions I'm sure it would have been 15-20 at least, if we could have held out to get them in.

My son's first shot was a miss at an estimated 70#-er travelling away from us at a very high rate of speed. We missed more than we hit, saw a lot more than we got shots at, but all in all it was great.

We saw dolphins, sharks, sea turtles, etc. Spent the last two hours rod fishing, caught some redfish, I caught a small shark, my son hooked about a 4' shark (it jumped and cut the line), my buddy caught a flounder, and we had lots of bites.

Best part is wasn't an expensive trip--a whole lot cheaper than most out of state hunts I've been on, and the chance of bringing home meat was a lot higher.

To give an idea on the size of the rays, both my son and me are 6'3". Mine looks smaller because the pic was taken from the Captain's tower seat--both were about the same size.

Bocajnala

Awesome!! How does ray taste???
-Jake

LBR

In my limited experience, the larger the ray, the stronger the taste and the coarser the meat. To me, smaller ones tasted like a cross between crab and lobster. The big ones we shot this time make me think of lobster, taste and texture...but I haven't eaten much lobster. There are tons of recipies on the 'net, we plan to try a few different ones. It's very edible, and there's a good chunk of meat on them. We grilled some with garlic butter--it was good. Plan to try some different things this time, since we have a lot more meat.

Murdy

I believe rays have some poison in their tails? Do you have to do anything special when cleaning them to avoid contaminating the rest of the meat?

burniegoeasily

I've gaffed rays before to use for shark bait out in the open water. I have bow fished for flounder before. it was a blast. Never eaten ray, but would assume it is like shark. Probably have to bleed it well before it dies.

LBR

The rays have a stinger, sometimes two, in their tail. They know how to use it--have to be careful getting them in. Control the tail, and slide a shap knife under it and cut it off. We put them in a bottle of bleach water to dissolve the skin and meat--leaved a barbed bone looking thing for a souvineer. It won't contaminate the meat.

The only bleeding we did was from the arrows. Very little blood in the meat. We've read up on them a lot, nothing I saw called for bleeding them out. Only shark I've eaten was in sushi--based on that, no comparison--not even close. Pumpkins and lemons. Their skin is similar to a shark's, but that's about it. All but one of the one's we got in the boat had most of it's tail missing...guess the sharks like the taste of rays.

Murdy

"The rays have a stinger, sometimes two, in their tail. They know how to use it--have to be careful getting them in. Control the tail, and slide a shap knife under it and cut it off. We put them in a bottle of bleach water to dissolve the skin and meat--leaved a barbeded bone looking thing for a souvineer. It won't contaminate the meat."

Interesting, my Grandfather used to catch them a lot on trips to Florida, but we never did anything with them.

Ridge Runner

skin the wings use a circular cutter and slice the cores into bitesized pieces, they actualy sell them as imitation scallops in some countries, would be good skewered on the grill with shrimp and cubes of sharksteak blackened.
other than that the best shark bait you can get.
caught one that taped 5'3" tip to tip my last trip to OBX on a rod and reel, was a real workout getting him in then walking him 700' from the end of avon pier to the beach.
RR