SUMMER STINGERS
Big ray sport on the Essex beaches.
LIVING ON THE ESSEX coast, I’m only a stone’s throw from the county’s prime stingray beaches and, as a result, these heavyweight sea creatures have been on the top of my catch list. Stingrays have been a real interest to me from a very young age and over the years I have lost count of how many I have landed or lost. I have some great memories of being the first angler to catch a stingray in the All England Stingray Championships, which was held every year at St Osyth beach when it was not unusual to see upwards of 180 competitors turn up from all around the country.
Sadly, that annual match has long gone, but those stingers still frequent our shallow beaches every summer, and to actually hook one and feel its immense power is really something to be experienced.
TIME & PLACE
To actually target these giant beasts is not as easy as it seems. You have to put in the hours and be in the right place at the right time to help your cause. Even then, there are no guarantees.
Unlike other fish, stingrays can be caught on most states of the tide. Indeed, I have caught them on the full force of an ebb tide and at slack water too. It’s the unpredictability of stingray fishing that makes everything about them that bit more exciting.
Top bait must be ragworms, with peeler crabs a close second and, to be honest, in recent years squid has also seen its fair share of stingrays caught.
On my last fishing trip to the south of Iceland I met up with father and son team Lee and Oliver (Olly) Kucyj, from Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, and we soon hit it off and have kept in touch ever since.
On that trip young Olly caught an Iceland record starry ray of 1.82kg, which was later found to be a world record.
Over the last couple of years Lee had been messaging me about coming over to Essex to seek out a first stingray, but what with one thing or another we just couldn’t find a date to meet up.
That all changed this year and, even though it’s a long way from their home in Pembrokeshire to Essex, they were keen to give it a go.
With high pressure above us and a mini heatwave heading our way, all was conducive to catching a stingray. This species loves warm weather – in fact, the hotter the better!
There is nothing better than a morning low tide and the sun warming the beach as the tide floods up the beach. Stingrays love the heat of the sand on an incoming tide.
Our session began at 8.30am when I met
“There is nothing better than a morning low tide and the sun warming the beach as the tide floods up the sand”
Lee and Olly and we headed for the beach. We could feel the heat building, and with plenty of juicy ragworms and some locally sourced peeler crabs for good measure, surely we’d find a few bass and maybe a stinger too?
WAITING GAME
The beaches I fish are shallow and at high tide six feet of water is about as much as we can hope for.
We were fishing two hours either side of high water with long pulley rigs carrying size 1/0 and 2/0 hooks baited with ragworms.
With baits cast into the flooding tide, we sat back and waited for that first bite. It was the hottest day so far, so we were grateful for the cool bag packed with ice blocks to keep the bait fresh. The first hour produced very little at all and I was beginning to think that the trip would be wasted. I was already thinking about excuses, such as the weather being too hot, the clear water and crabs robbing the bait from the hooks.
Eventually, just before high tide, we started to get bites, mostly from school bass, but at least the rod tips were starting to get busy. Even if we didn’t catch our intended species, we would have a good day with bass.
Seeing a rod-bending bite, I struck into a weighty fish, but, alas, it was not a stingray, but it was a bass. Soon Lee and Olly landed a couple of sizable bass each.
As high tide came the rods stayed quiet in the tripods, but as the ebb started to flow Olly’s Tronixpro Cobra rod began to bend over and then kept going some more. He picked up his rod and held it for a few seconds, looked at me and said “Shall I strike it?” My answer was “Yes, and hold on!”
AWESOME SCRAP
As Olly got to grips with playing the fish, the relief flowed over me like the biggest weight had been lifted from my shoulders. The Cobra showed a healthy bend and line was doggedly moving up the tide.
The look on the youngster’s face was a picture and one that I could recollect to all those years ago when I caught my first stingray from these very beaches.
After an awesome scrap we began to make out the dark outline of the stingray in the clear shallow water and that venomous tail thrashing above the waterline.
Olly handled the fight like a pro, and I stood back until the stingray was landed, unhooked, and photographs were taken. Soon the fish was released into the sea and, as the heavyweight ray swan off, the smile on Olly’s face said it all. Father and son are already looking forward to their next stingray session. ■