Ray Not by Dave Puzak

Posted on June 17, 2024 by bayside425

I was bored on Saturday and my boat is waiting on a part. So, I figured I would hit the back bay shoreline for weak fish on light tackle. When I got to the Barnegat Bay bank, there really wasn’t much going on. While casting with my ugly stuck ultra-light with 20lb braid, I saw some cownose rays. I figured I’d give it a shot to see if I could land one and 25 minutes later, I landed the monster ray.

I was totally unprepared and had the Tesla instead of my truck. It definitely would not fit into my 5 gallon bucket. So… I cleared out the trunk and put it on my plastic liner mat. When I got it home, the butchering was rather easy, but bloody. Pulled up the first recipe the internet gave us, and my wife and I cooked it up for Father’s Day. It came out like a gourmet meal you would get at a Portuguese restaurant. It would make a great addition to any paella!

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Fishing Facts

Of the fifty United States, thirty-eight have a striped-bass record. New Jersey has the largest striped-bass record—a 78-pound 8·ounce whopper that was caught in 1982. The state with the smallest striped-bass record is Iowa. That landlocked striper weighed only 9 pounds 4 ounces and was caught in 1983.

There’s something fishy about beer these days. Fish Tail Ale is popular as ever, and New Jersey’s Flying Fish Brewery is one of the state’s largest specialty breweries. There’s also Washington’s Wild Salmon Organic Pale Ale, Florida’s Land Shark beer, Delaware’s Dogfish Head beer, and two versions of Stingray beer—a lighter version from the Cayman Islands and a dark beer from Canada.

The triangle fly is probably the most unusual of saltwater flies. It’s one of the few, if not only, flies tied to a treble hook. It’s also barely a fly at all, because hardly any material is used. It is complete after tying the two straw pearl twinkle flashes and the tiny tuft of natural squirrel, leaving an entire hook fully exposed. Incredibly this barebacked treble fly is a knockout when it comes to sea trout.