THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Noted for its big blonde rays, I decided to try out a rod I had been asked to put through its paces for a
magazine review. I won't say what make it was. What I will say though is that having fought a very
good blonde ray to the point where we could see it in the water coming up, the combined pressures
mentioned earlier were just too much for the rods tip which broke, parting the line in the process.
Needless to say, I didn't bother with the write up.
A lot of good blonde rays are caught out of venues such as Weymouth, Salcombe, Dartmouth and the
like. A friend of mine, Wayne Comben, targets them regularly out from Langstone to the east of the
Isle of Wight, where he can, if he puts his mind to it, catch five different species of ray all in the same
day, including his favourite blondes, though not all from the same spot.
The Channel Islands are another very good area. I've seen quite a few brought in to Guernsey by the
local commercial boats, and have been out rod and line fishing from Jersey over the Corbiere Bank
where we had a few.
Banks formed in some of the narrower outlets from Cork Harbour in south east Ireland are yet another
renowned area, as are some of the Bristol Channel banks, particularly along the South Wales side. Brian
Swinbank has even taken them around Caliach Point operating out of Tobermory on the Isle of Mull.
So potentially quite a widespread species which should not prove too difficult to locate from a boat,
though less so from the shore, the main ingredient being to pick the right boat, book a suitable set of
tides in terms of size and seasonal timing which the skipper should be able to advise on, then get some
baits down there with the boat lying at anchor.
As for shore fishing, I know an odd one has been taken from rock marks around the Holyhead area of
Anglesey, including Rhoscolyn which I know well. But the safest bet would again have to be the
Channel Islands, both from the rocks and from St. Catherines Breakwater on Jersey, fishing a heavy
monofilament pulley rig.
Associated audio interview numbers: 81.
SPOTTED RAY Raja montagui
Bucket List status – result
Also known in Ireland as the homelyn ray,
the spotted ray has a potential range taking
in the whole of the British Isles, though it is
less abundant along North Sea coasts. A fish
similar in general appearance to the blonde
ray, which is also covered in dark spots, but
without the blonde ray's very much bigger
growth range. So anything with spots
weighing in at ten pounds or more is very
unlikely to be a spotted ray, even a record
spotted ray.
To confirm the identity as being that of a
spotted ray it will have dark spots which tend to vary in size scattered over a golden brown background,
all of which will fail to reach the edges of the wings, leaving a narrow unmarked margin.
Some spots may well group together to form a small tight clump known as an ocellus or eye spot in the
middle of each wing, though this isn't always going to be the case.
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