Headed out from Woody's point at about 6:30am on Saturday with Troy to learn a thing or two (or three or four or five). Decided to anchor up at the D9 and try our luck there while waiting for the wind to die down to go out deeper. It was all quiet apart from a herring or two when suddenly Troy's lighter line started screaming. I, having never seen anything like this happen on my boat, wet myself like a little schoolgirl and waited patiently to see what was on the end of the line. After about 5 minutes, it just seemed to become dead weight, so it was pretty obvious it was going to be a ray, after 2-3 minutes of it VERY slowly being dragged up, we learned that the bastard had wrapped itself around the anchor rope about 40 times and got the other hook of the paternoster rig hooked into the rope, so I started pulling the anchor rope in and of course, theres a VERY pissed off eagle ray attatched to it, waving it's tail out of the water. At this point me and Troy looked at each other not knowing what the hell to do, as I couldn't get close enough to it to get it off without it whipping it's tail at me, when suddenly our winged friend decided then was a good time to let go of the hook, thankfully, and left us with a hell of a knot to untie around the anchor rope.

After that little encounter I made the stupid mistake of saying "Wow, I've never had a ray caught on my boat before." as we went out a bit deeper to the five fathom bank.

There was very little wind, but the swell was, lets say, bigger than I've ever been in (not actually that big), but when you're looking at a wall of water about twice the size of the boat, it's a little concerning. Luckily, I decided to grow a pair and keep going because it just happens that it was one of the nicest days I've been out deep. We got to a lump Troy had found and started a drift, within 1 drift we had caught my first pinkie, Troy got the first Sambo I'd ever seen, and a decent skippy (good introduction to drifting on lumps for me!) and the ever present wrasse. After a few more difts and just being tormented by pickers and constantly hawrassed, I was sitting down with a rod in the water when something decided to grab the end and just about pull me and the rod into the water. I got up thinking I'd caught another boat, as I held on for dear life to my precious rod and line was just peeling off my TLD25 with full drag on. Of course, Troy had caught a sambo here recently, and this was the instant thought we both had, as it started going on runs through the ocean and i remember saying at the time "How the @*&% does a fish even do this sort of thing?" as it was laughing at my efforts to stop it. About 5-10 minutes later, it decided to give me a break, as I started to finally gain some ground; at this point I think it finally realised it was hooked, because it took off even faster than before as I stared in disbelief as my 80lb braid started disappearing off my reel again. Then I thought it happened, I thought I'd been bricked, as that sinking feeling started getting to my stomach, but then I realised that it was ever so slowly coming up (I thought I had caught the anchor like Troy did, before realising we were drifting, lol) and I finally saw color, I cheered a little as I saw color, as it was silver and thought it may have been something real nice, when I soon learned it was white and of course, it was the underside of the biggest stingray I had ever seen. As I pulled it up closer to the side of the boat, it was about 1/3 of the size of my 5.1 meter boat and must have weighed about 25 kilos, even though it was a ray, I was over the moon with it, I'd never had a fight before and I learned that fisho's aren't joking when they say 'getting your arm stretched'. So I cut the line and away she went, 20 minutes of labour swimming away seemed disappointing, but at the same time, ever so rewarding.

Even though we caught nothing worth eating that day, it was the best fishing day I've had to date and I certainly won't be forgetting that fight in a hurry; was a great introduction to fishing out of the sound. I now see why everyone gets really addicted to fishing those bigger fish. Next mission: Bigger boat.... might have to hide it from the missus though haha. Huge thanks to Troy for showing me how to find ground/drift/catch decent fish, 1 month to go to catch my dhuie/snapper before that ban.

EDIT: uploaded photos.