THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

Most of the time we spent fishing in the Solent was during the
daylight hours, though I have done all night sessions there for
bass, smoothhounds and stingrays, providing the loose weed
washing backwards and forwards with the tide wasn't going to be
an added problem.
Even so, most of our stingray action came during the daytime,
which is maybe as well considering what could happen when
you're partly unsighted after nightfall, even with a good lamp.
On one of earliest trips one very breezy afternoon, my then young
son Ian who couldn't have been much more than about six or seven
decided he wanted to tag along, and caught himself a twenty two
pounder. And as the boat at that time had no name, he insisted I
call it 'stinger', which when we got back home is what we did.
Then, maybe four or five years later aboard a different updated
incarnation of 'stinger' which Brian Douglas, myself, and Ian had
trailed over to Tralee Bay in County Kerry, we spent a lot of time
Ian Williams, Solent Stingray fishing a mark known locally as the 'monkhole' which was a slight
depression very close in to the shore tucked up well inside the
bay miles away from the open sea, where surprise surprise, huge monkfish used to hang out.
Not only monkfish though. All manner of other stuff too, including lots of small eyed rays and stingrays
which we took plenty of, along with a sprinkling of thornbacks, small tope and the odd huss for good
measure, providing us with some excellent shallow water sport where the only way fish could run and
fight was away from the boat and as hard as they could.
Fortunately, the mix of fish in there all responded well to pretty much the same approach, that being a
four to six foot sixty pounds bs monofilament trace with a 6/0 hook and mackerel bait. So much so that
you quite literally didn't know what might be coming up next.
Then suddenly, the monkfish throughout Tralee Bay were cleaned
out commercially and quickly faded from anglers thinking.
However they did it, while it was most certainly the monkfish they
were in there after, there is no doubting that other species would
have suffered too, and that would have included the stingray.
Whether they had been the same ones returning year on year is
difficult to know. But this hasn't stopped them completely, despite
the fact that throughout the north east Atlantic to the north of
Biscay, stingray numbers are now considered to be so low that the
species has been declared as being under threat.
The current Irish record of just over seventy pounds was taken in
Tralee Bay in 1999, a good fifteen years after our last visit, so they
must still continue to come.
One of the main reasons why I love stingray fishing so much is that
in terms of surface area when compared to say a thornback ray,
they look deceivingly small. It isn't until you take note of the depth
of their body along the spinal ridge, and the steep angle this takes
into those short stumpy wings, that you really appreciate how much
potential power there is there.
Steve Perry, shore Stingray
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