Jeez, looks like a serious workout.  You should probably drink protein shakes in between fish.

Quote from: TheCraftsman on December 16, 2015, 02:45:10 PM
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.

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.

I can't get any of the methods to work.  If one of the mods can make changes to my profile, could you make this my avatar?

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Quote from: spideyjg on December 15, 2015, 07:22:25 PM
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.

Quote from: spideyjg on December 15, 2015, 07:22:25 PM
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?

Quote from: TheCraftsman on December 16, 2015, 10:12:03 AM
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.

Awesome shark!  Glad you got photos, thanks for posting!

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