Fish Detail!

The blue crabs have been moving into the Bay and into the Bayou area for the past few weeks.  This makes me happy since my freezers had just about been depleted of all the delicious (and free!) crab meat that I use so often in Gumbo and Po'boys!  I needed to replenish my lost stock!  Mark made me six new crab pots and all I needed to do was bait them and wait!  The crabs would come and I could set to work picking out that succulent meat!   I was jumping the gun, though, as I needed to catch some bait in order to set those traps.  Mark and I went to the pier this morning with the idea of snagging a few Hardhead Catfish.  Using these as crab bait is about the only useful purpose that I have found.  Sure enough, the catfish were biting!  We started pulling in one after another!  I needed at least six large ones for the traps..or some other "trash" fish that could be used.

"Stumpy", the tailless stingray!

Suddenly, Mark hooked something large!  His line went whipping out like nobody's business!  He would pull and the fish would pull!  We both had the same idea that this was a large redfish!  I grabbed the scoop net while he played the fish.  Back and forth went the battle!  Finally the fish was in range of my net but when it surfaced....aacck!..I was not about to scoop that thing!  There on the surface of the water was a large stingray!!!  Oh, no!  That was one large stingray!  For anyone that may not know...stingrays are not the most likable fish in the water!  These fish have a large barb on their tail that is capable of inflicting a potentially deadly wound!  Still, Mark landed the fish (without the help of my scoop net!).  He and I, both, will unhook the stingrays and either use them as crab bait or release them to go on their merry way.  Once this one was on the pier, though, we noticed that there was something a mite unusual.  The stingray was missing its long whip-like tail!  Someone had "de-tailed" this fish!  The stump of the tail wiggled back and forth.  This whipping movement would have been a danger if that whip and barb had been intact but now it was almost comical.  Poor stingray..try as it might, it could not achieve the threatening stance that it would normally have.  Suddenly, my heart went out to the poor fish!  Yep..I felt sorry for a stingray!  Once Mark unhooked the critter, I took a few pictures and then we shoved the fish back into the water!  This was one lucky fish!  Obviously, it has been hooked at least two times and both times, it has gained it freedom!  Go fishy!  After settling down from that bit of excitement, I caught a smaller stingray.  This one, too, was released..I am not sure why since they are potentially such a danger but I figured if we let one go free, the other deserved the same treatment!

Another large stingray..this one with the dangerous tail intact!

This evening found us back on the pier and yet another stingray was landed! Mark pulled in another huge ray and again he unhooked it and flipped it back off the pier. What was with today's fishing expeditions?  There must be a lot of stingrays swimming around in that murky water!  We did manage to catch enough catfish and ladyfish to fill the crab traps!  By late this evening, we already had nineteen nice, fat crabs!  Tomorrow, if all goes well, I will be boiling crabs!