Didnt have any shark fishing stories to tell so i decided to tell a story of a massive stingray. I was fishing in Ocean City Maryland last year i had gone to sleep at 4:00am and woke up at 6:00am to go fishing on the ocean city boardwalk pier, I fished for about 10 hours and caught a mess of large cownose rays, and one 15 inch bluefish. so i hooked up the bluefish on a 9 foot shoremaster custom rod and a penn 750 ssm with 50lbs test powerpro. at almost 5:00pm i got a slow steady run, and when i tightened up the circle hook set in and the stingray darted off making a blistering 275 plus yard run almost to the backing. Basically for most of the fight he sucked himself to the bottom and i slowly gained line on him. about an hour in i got him to the T head of the pier, and i passed the rod down to someone on the beach. After resuming the fight i started to feel grinding on my line, I relized the horror that my thin braid was slowely being chafed away by the stingrays barb, at this point i have about 200 people out on the beach watching the fight. After about 2 hours 45 minutes he comes to the surface and we see him, he was about 8 feet across in every direction, and the tail added on another 8 feet, Finally i get him to the trough and i fight him for about 15 more minutes and then at 9:05pm all i hear is scrape...scrape...scrape...scrape...PING! That was the most heart breaking moment of my life.The estamated weight was around 600lbs.
-Mr.Stingray if your reading this somewhere in the deep blue sea I want my rematch 
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sounds like a good fight. wish u would have landed it i wanted to see pics of it. he would have made a great shark bait
sounds like a good fight. wish u would have landed it i wanted to see pics of it. he would have made a great shark bait
A true giant like that deserves to be released in my opinion. These rare giants will only be around for so long.........
one that big i would have released but we have used some 4 foot across or so for bait.
one that big i would have released but we have used some 4 foot across or so for bait.
Later in the year I caught a smaller one which was about 200lbs and I lost him to a slipped crimp. What would you catch with a 4 foot stingray
Posted this in another thread but it bears repeating here, I got one out on Pine Island;Southern StingRay, on half a Ladyfish, it was whole but a Shark tore it in half, lost the shark, then threw the half back out on the bottom, Ray hit it,
fought it on a 50/80 customTORNADO rod {Cape Tool&Tackle } PENN 309Mw/50#BigGame, 7/0Hook,150#stainless leader, He was 5FEET across ,took three guys to lift it out & up onto Capt. Con's restaurant Dock, took the stinger: 8"long,soaked it in bleach/water overnite, looks like Ivory
Threw him back , his eyes were like horses eyes {that big} he made a real LOUD "snorting "noise laying there on that dock,
Somebody said:"You know how old he must be?" so back he went!
one that big i would have released but we have used some 4 foot across or so for bait.
Later in the year I caught a smaller one which was about 200lbs and I lost him to a slipped crimp. What would you catch with a 4 foot stingray
idk we had it on my buddys 80w and some thing grabbed it jumped and sounded like a car hit the water. but didnt commit to the bait in the am when we reeled up there was a bite mark from one side to the other.
I've landed them up to 6'6" and thats a big ass ray.
Would have loved to see the one that got away.
Luckily everytime I have had a ray hit me It's been on a 6/0 with 130 lb mono locked drag on an 80 lb rod. needless to say I would get drug up and down the catwalk before he would break.
one that big i would have released but we have used some 4 foot across or so for bait.
Later in the year I caught a smaller one which was about 200lbs and I lost him to a slipped crimp. What would you catch with a 4 foot stingray
idk we had it on my buddys 80w and some thing grabbed it jumped and sounded like a car hit the water. but didnt commit to the bait in the am when we reeled up there was a bite mark from one side to the other.
Are you saying you had a 4FOOT across Stingray for BAIT & something hit it that left TEETHMARKS all the way across????!!!!???
You know , I had a friend in CC with a MasterDive Liscence that told me he was diving by the CC/FtMyers Bridge {the one on the end of DEL PRADO ,
He said he was down about 40 feet ,had a short Bangstik,
He said something HUGE swam across just under the surface ,blocking the sunlite filtering down ,
I said had to be a whale ,
He said absolutely NOT, but he had NO idea what it was , but it was THE biggest thinghe had ever seen .
We were swimming at VENICE beach , & had taken a break, sitting down at the Jetty end; something really big , pushing a wake went from the jetty end where it surfaced to way past the pier,
I walked the Beach trying to see what it was , & noticed alot of people pointing & looking;
I asked a couple:"What do you think?"
All said: "No idea at all"
Whatever it was didn't have a dorsal or caudal breaking the surface but it was just under & it was huge,at least 16-18FT long.
There are some big rays out their.
Dont want to say impossible but a ray 8 feet 600lbs on spinning gear and 50lb line from the beach is a little crazy 
only reason I say this is because I had a 3-400lb roughtail ray pull 60lbs of drag off my 80W and have been dumped by rays with bigger spinning reels.
Im sorry but a 300lb ray would have dumped that setup before you could even think about what to do.
Plus the world record southern stingray is under 250 lbs
The biggest stingrays in the Atlantic are roughtails and the world record is 400lbs.
Sorry for being a donkey...
Most people claim big rays (100lb+) and show me a picture of them holding it straight in front of them off the ground. Those rays are not 100lbs and are more like 50-70lbs, so most that claim 200+ really are talking 125lb rays.......
142lbs
CJ that proves my exact point!
CJ that proves my exact point!
Yes I no. But similar species such as Thailand giant freshwater stingrays have been weighed accurately such as the 412 lbs stingray with a 6 foot wingspan that Jeremy wade caught. The Thailand giant freshwater stingray is dimentionally exactly the same as a southern.
CJ that proves my exact point!
so I presume that my ray which. Had a wingspan of about 8 feet was about 600lbs