hello from new member from Illinois

[BenCantrell]

Hey guys,

I've been friends with Tom on facebook for a while, and he recently steered me over here. Looks like a great site!  I love all the shark and ray pics.  You guys aren't messing around!

I live in central Illinois, but my girlfriend lives in Escondido, so I'll be making frequent trips to CA to visit her. I'm one of those people who keeps a lifelist of the fish species I've caught on hook & line, so I'm very excited to add a bunch of Pacific species.

I don't have many sharks and rays on my lifelist.  My only shark is a small silky caught from a boat in the FL Keys.



The two rays I have are both from Tampa.  The first is a clearnose skate and the second is a cownose ray.











I also helped my buddies land this big nurse shark in the Keys.  To count a species on my lifelist I have to be the one to hook it and fight it, and man oh man did I want to catch my own, but it just wasn't in the cards that trip.



Since the site is geared towards prehistoric species, I bet you guys will like some of the prehistoric freshwater species I've caught.

Lake Sturgeon from Wisconsin



Shovelnose Sturgeon from Indiana



Bowfin from Illinois



Spotted Gar from Illinois



Longnose Gar from Illinois



Shortnose Gar from Illinois



Florida Gar from Florida



I'm coming out to Escondido this weekend and staying through Jan 1st.  My girlfriend and I are thinking of checking out Oceanside Pier and maybe doing some shore fishing somewhere as well.  We'd love to have recommendations for places to get a good variety of species.  We also enjoy meeting up with other people, so if you'd like to get together for some fishing, please let me know!  We're pretty flexible on our schedule all of next week.

Cheers,
Ben Cantrell

[Pinoyfisher]

Welcome!! Nice bunch of catches! Would be great to see some reports from your neck of the woods.

[Latimeria]

On the water now, but cool post Ben! Thanks for coming on board and we'll get you on some new species for sure. 

[spideyjg]

Welcome Ben. That Cownose resembles a bat a little bit.

When you go to the pier target mackerel and bonito for bait of bigger stuff.

Depending surf and other conditions I'm sure you can hit someplace. Surf has been horrible the last few windows I have had to fish but will be looking to get somewhere again. I may have to hit something this Thursday as the forecast is rain moving in Saturday through Tuesday. 

Are you geared up for the big boys?

Jim

[xjchad]

Welcome to the board!
Great pics and cool fish! 

[TheCraftsman]

Welcome to p-soul big fella. I like that lil shark, what kind of gear you catch it on, how was the fight?

[BenCantrell]

Thanks for the warm welcome!

That Cownose resembles a bat a little bit.

I thought the same thing when I saw pics of bat rays on here. That cownose ray felt way heavier than it looked, and I'm guessing bats will be too.

Are you geared up for the big boys?

Haha, no not really. I have a pair of 6.5 ft M 4-piece Ugly Stiks that fit in my carry-on bag when I travel.  Both have Penn Fierce 4000 reels, one with 10 lb mono and the other with 20 lb braid.  I keep spools of 8 lb and 17 lb fluoro in my bag for making leaders when the fish are line shy.

Here's the 6.5 ft rod bent over with a skipjack on the line.



My girlfriend wants some gear to keep at her apartment, so I'm planning to get two rods for her, one 7-8 ft ML or M with a 3000 reel and 6-8 lb mono.  The other will be 8-9 ft MH or H with a 6000 reel and ~30 lb braid.  Not sure of the specifics yet.  We plan to visit a few stores and see what feels good in her hands.  Think the 2nd setup will work for small to medium sharks and rays?

I like that lil shark, what kind of gear you catch it on, how was the fight?

It wasn't much of a fight, but it was a fun catch.  We were doing our first chartered trip, and it wasn't going very well.  We wasted almost the whole day trolling around without a bite, and then in the afternoon we stopped over a deep wreck to jig for snapper.  We caught a few vermilions, and then we saw the silky sharks circling the boat about 15 to 20 feet below us.  The charter captain told us very sternly to keep our baits away from them.  We asked if we could target them, and he said no, because he didn't have any steel leaders.  He had been grumpy with us the whole day, and we were getting tired of him barking at us, so when he turned his back we dropped our baits right in front of the sharks.  We were using chicken rigs (same as a high low rig I think) with squid on fairly large circle hooks.  We hooked 3 sharks, got all 3 up to the boat, and only one bit through the line before we could soft bounce it into the boat.  The captain was not happy with us.

[TheCraftsman]

That's freakin funny man...  Sounds like something I would do:) although I've never been fishing on a boat in the big blue.  Your gonna need heavier gear if you wanna tango with the big boys. Most of us use 12' H rods that can handle minimum of 30lb. You want a reel that can hold at least 300yards of 30lb although I like 40lb, especially for the big bat Rays.. Them suckers take loooooong runs! Lots of good advice on set ups and rigging in the "tackle talk" section.

[spideyjg]

There is no targeting small to medium rays. You toss out a bit and see what picks it up.

I run a Daiwa saltist level wind 40 size, can't recall the specific  model, on a  Ocean master 12 foot casting room in the heaviest weight. In the surf you toss a minimum of 6 ounces of weight plus 2-4 ounces of bait.

I have a Cabelas salt striker spinning combo in their heaviest size for a spinning rig. 80 lb braid and leader on the casting rig and 65 braid on the spinner rig.

You want to get 6 and 8 ounce sputnik sinkers for the surf and 3 to 4 ounce eggs for the bay.

30 lb you may be outgunned by a big ray or the added drag of outgoing surf. A big ray will just get mad at 20 lbs of drag

Jim

[BenCantrell]

Hmm, well I'm hoping to move out to California sometime in the next few years, so the heavier gear will have to wait until then.  For now I'll get rods that my girlfriend enjoys using, which will mostly be from the piers.

Thanks for all the gear advice guys.  I'll be digging this thread up again once I make the move.

[TheCraftsman]

I'm sure some of these down south near where ur ol lady lives got some extra gear and will probably take you out if you are interested.

[BenCantrell]

I'm sure some of these down south near where ur ol lady lives got some extra gear and will probably take you out if you are interested.

That would be seriously awesome.  My number is 309-361-2807, anyone can feel free to shoot me a text if they're going out and don't mind some noobs crashing the party.  I'll be in town Dec 21st to Jan 1st.  As compensation I'll teach you how to catch really really really small fish on hook & line.  Just think of all the new species you could catch!    Or I suppose I could also bring beer and food to share.

[Eric H]

Welcome.

Where about in ca will you be visitin?

Spread the word about prehistoric soul.

[Latimeria]

I got some gear for you, Ben.  I'll message you.