I needed an adventure. It had been 7 months since I had launched my kayak in the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve been busy with my buddy Joe hunting pigs near Cedar Key, Florida. My kayak was buried in the garage behind a host of things from our home that need to find another home. We had replaced most of the flooring in our house and most everything had been stored in the garage. When the flooring was complete, we moved only the things necessary back into the house and I had been avoided dealing with what was left. But, I needed an adventure, and my kayak had become locked in the garage due to my inability to deal with our junk. So, I re-arranged the garage, threw some things out, recycled some others and with the help of my wife dug the kayak out of the den where it had been hibernating.
The tide was high on this recent afternoon, 3.5 feet above normal. My buddy Mark and I decided we would go spear fishing for Mullet at one of our favorite fishing spots, a small piece of sand off of our coastline. One of our favorite places to fish. We launched our kayaks off a road along our coastline known for fishing between Bayport Park and Pine Island Park. That’s what’s great about adventuring from a kayak… you can pretty much launch it anywhere you like.
After about a 30 minute, windy, white capped, paddle we landed on our spot. It was hot, so we hydrated, donned our gear and set out to hunt fish. About 2 hours into the adventure and 2 missed Mullet later, I was following a Sheepshead around, about to pull the trigger when I heard Mark calling my name. I looked up to see him sitting on a rock where he began telling me about his face to face encounter with a 4 foot long Cobia. At first glance he thought it was a shark swimming toward him in the shallow water, but after a second pass and the realization that it was a Cobia, he took a shot at it. The spear shaft missed the Cobia as it turned in the water and struck a large StingRay buried in the sand, to Mark’s surprise. The Stingray was large enough to begin pulling Mark out toward open water and then his lined snapped. The Stingray disappeared with Mark’s spear still attached.
Our spearguns don’t have reels. We typically just hunt Mullet, Snapper, and Sheepshead. A couple of country boys from the South, Mullet, Snapper and Sheepshead were a staple in our diets growing up. So, no reels needed or so we thought. That may need to change.
As he finished telling me the story, he asked “Can you help me recover it… I really don’t want it to suffer”. “Of course”, I said …”Show me where you encountered the Stingray”. We swam out about 25 yards beyond the rock pile and there in the sand was the Stingray fluttering in the sand, with the spear attached. I handed Mark my speargun and asked if he wanted to end it’s suffering to which he took my gun and put a spear in it’s head. and just like that we realized the Stingray was a female. To our surprise and amazement it birthed two baby stingrays. One of the babies was dead as it floated in the water around us and the other swam off to start its life.
Mark exclaimed… “Did you see that”?! The mood fell kind of somber to be honest. First it was the un-intentional kill of a stingray and then to our surprise, it was pregnant. “I’m not sure how to handle this”. Mark said. We decided that we should not let it go to waste. Neither of us have ever eaten Stingray but we both have heard the rumors that restaurants will sometimes sell it in a meal as Scallops.
So, we gathered it up and swam it back to our boats. Where we cleaned it and divided it into our coolers. I did not make a picture. To be honest, I forgot to pull my phone from it’s dry bag. There wasn’t an excitement for a days catch or a celebratory high five just 2 guys respecting that the animal not go to waste. According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Stingrays are an unregulated species with a bag limit of 2 or 100 pounds.
We paddled back to the trucks, loaded up our gear, and headed home. I put the Stingray in the freezer, washed the salt water from my gear and stowed it all away. The next day I cleaned the meat, and prepared it in olive oil and garlic for a meal for my family. I thought the meat was o.k., but my son couldn’t get enough of it. I can definitely see where I have been served stingray in a restaurant as scallops. So the question is … Will I hunt Stingray to feed my family in the future? No. But should it be another un-intended target I won’t let it go to waste.
Make it your Absolute Intent to be better today than you were yesterday.