I once fished for rays and encountered a majestic creature that almost broke my fishing rod with its force. But I landed it after a tough fight. Safety should come first when fishing. Don’t get a broken ankle or sunburn! Safety Considerations The pulley rig can also be classed as a self-hooking rig. As the ray eats the bait then slowly flaps away, the rod tip is pulled down to indicate the bite proper, but also the fish comes up against the lead weight encouraging that self-hooking. All the angler then needs to do is to lift the rod and let the ray swimming away from you tighten the line and pull the rod over to make sure the hook is fully set. So putting things all together, to improve our chances of catching the specimen ray we want, we need to look at bites as well, because getting it all right and then falling at the last hurdle would be a shame! When it comes to selecting fishing equipment, the fishing rod is key. It can make your fishing experience amazing! Consider these factors before buying one: Factor

If you want to have a successful fishing trip, you must first find the perfect spot to cast your lure. It can be hard to decide which spot will be the best for results. It does seem as though undulates form small groups of up to a dozen fish, and they will move through an area together. It can pay to have ready baited rigs hung from your rod rest. Then, when you catch a ray, reel it in and instantly unclip the trace, clip on a fresh trace and bait and recast. Not deal with the fish which will be fine in that short span of time. This maximises your fishing time and again can really increase your catch ratio. Bites will feel like a sudden increasing pressure on the rod tip. As before, do nothing until the rod tip pulls over to the weight of the fish which will set the hook. Undulate ray boat fishing top tips Rays have an underslung mouth and many of the initial rattles and tugs you’ll see on the rod tip will be caused by the fish steadily manoeuvring itself over your bait. Give the fish time, then reel the line tight before attempting to set the hook by lifting firmly into the fish. Provided you have followed the guidelines I have offered you too could soon be enjoying successful ray fishing in Wales.Avoid Overplaying– Use a net or land them gently. Don’t overplay, as it may hurt them or stop other fish from biting. Add to that the fact that both are found in a similar habitat, enjoy an abundance of food, maybe at the cost of the prime species, and boat and shore anglers return most rays they catch, and you can understand the reason for the population explosion. It’s all about the right technique and some tips when it comes to fishing! Strategy Three: Fishing Techniques and Tips The Breakaway Impact lead is the most fail-safe. Others include the Gemini lead link with integral bait clip, the Breakaway Impact shield and the Breakaway Imp. In a normal year, Erdmann spends months overseas—often in Raja Ampat, but all over the world, too—conducting research, supervising students and wooing donors. The pandemic paused all that, so he bought the red boat and dedicated his summers to the manta ray project. Any day the conditions are right, he assembles a crew and heads out into the gulf. Confirmed manta ray sightings collated by Lydia Green are as much a map of where humans like to go fishing and sailing as it is of where the animals spend time. Mantas probably travel all the way around the coastline of the North Island, while humans prefer the Hauraki Gulf, the Bay of Plenty and the Bay of islands. The southernmost manta ray observation, off the coast of Kāpiti Island, says Green, was of a sole manta ray feeding with a group of blue whales. Mantas are also spotted in groups—in January 2021, an aggregation involving scores of mantas, hundreds of devil rays and a couple of whale sharks was seen near the Mokohinau Islands. Green describes them as “gentle giants”, and says their immense size is hard to fathom—until you see one. “We grow them big here in Aotearoa, that’s for sure.”

A barrel roll is a sign that it’s feeding—and it’s also incredibly helpful for identifying individual animals. Rays are peculiar looking fish that have a flattened body. They are related to sharks and spend much of their time living on the seabed. Their flattened body is well suited to living in the 2D world at the bottom of the sea, and this is where they hunt their prey of small fish, mollusks and crustaceans. Rays are a popular target for the recreational fisherman and they are well known for putting a good bend in the rod! When is a ray not a ray? When it’s a skate! Potential hazards must be understood for a safe environment. Identifying risks and taking precautions is essential for accident prevention. Electrical, mechanical, and chemical exposures can cause accidents. It’s crucial to identify hazards before commencing work. Strict SOPs should be followed to limit impacts.The rig is a very simple running ledger rig. This allows for a bait to be presented right on the bottom where the rays are grubbing around. The running ledger is very versatile rig and by using a zip slider, or link swivel, you can easily change the amount of lead used during a fishing session should the tidal flow increase or decrease. Ray will often grab a bait and run before fully engulfing it, so a sliding rig allows the fish to move off with the bait without dragging the lead with it, which may cause the fish to drop the bait.

Time to show that ray who’s the boss…or at least the better amateur fisherman! Fighting and Landing the RayRay mature fairly late with a female unable to reproduce until around nine-years-old, which explains why they are becoming scarce and why angling should put them on the catch and return list. Down-tide fishing works well in most cases, by either lowering the rig directly below the kayak, or by casting a little way down tide, which tends to present the rig a little better on the seabed, particularly if there is choppy waves or swell continually moving the kayak and rod tips. I’ve got a bite! This ray has smaller eyes than the others and is sometimes called a painted ray as is the undulate ray, hence some confusion. Boat record is 17lb 8oz off Watchet, Somerset. Originally a mantis shrimp specialist, Erdmann spent more than two decades living in Indonesia, where he logged more than 12,000 dives and recorded more than 200 new-to-science species of reef fish, corals and crustaceans. Ten years ago, he got roped into studying manta rays in Raja Ampat, in West Papua. Underwater, the animals would sometimes stay with him for an hour or more, the adults moving like graceful Balinese dancers, the newborns like floppy, curious puppies. “It didn’t take more than about a month and a half of spending serious time with mantas to absolutely fall in love,” Erdmann says. “They became my favourite animal of all.” Only sting ray and electric ray give birth to live young, like other members of the shark and ray family.