# offshore but closer



## beavis (Dec 11, 2006)

Took my son out to see what was eating along the beaches.  I was honestly just hoping to find some of the big jacks chasing bait to let him have a tug of war with.  Running out of the inlet was a breeze this morning and it was a great ride down the beach in the bright green water with the 2 foot swell and no chop.  Get down to where I want to start looking for birds diving and bait getting busted when I started seeing these.









The first one I saw had a big remora on it.  Then I started seeing more of them.  At first, none of them had any cobia on them. So after the first few of grabbing a rod and not seeing any fish, I started to grab the camera when I noticed 3 of them on this one ray.  Scramble to get a rod and botch the first cast.  Reel in quickly and re-cast, and bam, he ate my bucktail jig.  I have never caught one before, so I quickly gave the rod to my son and let him fight it on the light tackle.










After his epic 10 minute battle, we boated it and I showed him the spines on his back, took  a few pictures and released to him to grow bigger.  










Found a few other rays holding bigger fish didn’t have a other luck with them eating.  I got a couple of follows, but no commitment.  I lost a couple of jigs because I kept hooking the manta rays. Whoops.


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## orlgheenoer (Dec 10, 2006)

sweet! he looks thrilled.


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## makin moves (Mar 20, 2010)

your boy showed us how its done thats a great pic of him worken the fish in


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## phishphood (Dec 15, 2006)

That pic of your boy hooked up is awesome. It looks like he's about to get launched out of the boat. Tight work RJ.


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## richwalker71 (Feb 11, 2010)

Nice!
Little man was puttin' some heat on that fish!


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## Canoeman (Jul 23, 2008)

What a thrill for a kid (but then again, he may have caught much larger fish). I would have loved to be in his place when I was that age.
Nice work.


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## FlatCat (Aug 18, 2007)

What type boat is that? Just curious, looks like a good setup for nearshore/inshore.


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## gheenoe (Dec 27, 2009)

Nice pictures reminds me of when my dad used to take me fishing at that age.


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## beavis (Dec 11, 2006)

> What type boat is that? Just curious, looks like a good setup for nearshore/inshore.



panga


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## deerfly (Mar 10, 2007)

rj, doesn't get much better than that. 

One thing though, next time he gets into a big fish you may need to have him wearing a "cup", unless you don't want grand kids.


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## HaMm3r (Dec 11, 2006)

That's cool seeing the kid working like that! Great report!


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