Never noticed this before

[Prof. Salt]

I paddled a bunch of miles yesterday looking for elusive fish, and while I found a few something else kept drawing my attention. I would spot a fish ahead feeding tight to the mud bank and as I got closer would see it was not a regular fish but a stingray feeding so shallow that the eyes were above the surface, with side fins and tail occasionally dancing above the water too. Is this normal behavior that I just failed to notice for the last few years? There were a few crabs working the edge along those shorelines and I wondered if that was why the rays were so shallow.

[Kayak Kid]

Prof, sting rays are inches deep, shallow, and everywhere in between. I did a great deal of wading in my younger days. Always shuffled my feet along the bottom. I once hooked a red while wading the bay side of Galveston Island. As I was backing up to keep tension on the line I must have stepped onto a sting ray that was feeding in the mud I kicked up. He got me right above my achilles heel. The pain was extreme.

I don't care where sting rays hang out, I don't suggest anyone being near them. That's what yaks are for.

[SWFinatic]

Sounds like you were seeing cownose rays. I’ve seen them in the marsh and shallow water back lakes (especially a back lake not far from deeper water) but not too often.

With the recent drop in tides rays could easily be trying to reach the last of whatever it is they’re eating before the water drops even more.

[Prof. Salt]

Sounds like you were seeing cownose rays. I’ve seen them in the marsh and shallow water back lakes (especially a back lake not far from deeper water) but not too often.

With the recent drop in tides rays could easily be trying to reach the last of whatever it is they’re eating before the water drops even more.

I got within a few feet of most of them, and they were definitely southern stingrays. They were looking for something right at the water edge, and it was a behavior I had not seen before. Just wondered if anyone else had seen them act this way. I have been close to cow nosed rays in Copano and they are pretty cool to watch as they feed. I caught a flounder on the fly rod right under one of the feeding rays as I was seeing if it was possible to catch a ray on fly, lol.

[Ron Mc]

Glenn, in the Cedar Bayou surf one blackwater day, I landed a 25-lb stingray on fly rod.
The 20 min it took me to finally drag it onto the beach kinda PO'd me, because my buddies limited on specs in that time.
It was OK, though, still had time to get my spec limit, too.

Seems kind of obvious some food is showing up in the extreme shallow that the stingrays are grazing on the rising tide.
It's also normal to find redfish and stingrays together - they feed on each other's grazing fallout.

[SWFinatic]

Sounds like you were seeing cownose rays. I’ve seen them in the marsh and shallow water back lakes (especially a back lake not far from deeper water) but not too often.

With the recent drop in tides rays could easily be trying to reach the last of whatever it is they’re eating before the water drops even more.

I got within a few feet of most of them, and they were definitely southern stingrays.

Gotcha I mentioned cownose ray because it’s the only ray I’ve ever seen with side fins. Either way it was something new (would’ve been for me too) which is always cool to see.

[Prof. Salt]

It's also normal to find redfish and stingrays together - they feed on each other's grazing fallout.

That's what I was hoping to find - stingrays and redfish working together. I've caught both species that way in the past but Saturday it was all stingrays, and each one seemed to be working solo. I'm going to blame the very high pressure for the lack interest in my lures. I presented a bait perfectly to two reds and they both just stopped, watched the bait crawl by their noses and then resumed their wanderings. They rarely turn down a well-presented bait.

[shoffer]

Prof - I have seen them working shallow shorelines like that in the West Galveston Bay marshes in the summer time. I recall one morning I saw some commotion on the side of a shoreline, thinking they were reds busting bait, and when I went over to fish it, there were three rays quickly swimming up to the shoreline, throwing bait on the shoreline and eating it and going back down. Sort of like you see an alligator do when hitting prey on the shoreline. It was pretty wild.

[John Hall]

I have seen it before, but not often. One foggy morning, I thought I was on a massive school of tailing reds only to find it was a massive school of winging rays I backed off the flat into deeper water of 3-4' to go around them and the school of rays came off the flat and under/around the kayak. It was surreal. As far as I could see in the fog forward, aft and abeam hundreds if not a thousand rays. Felt like it lasted a lifetime, but likely only a minute or so. That was a day that if I didnt hook up on one single fish, my day was complete and whole. Ended up with a red limit that I felt was an overly generous blessing.

[Kitsune]

I have never seen those sting rays doing it, but I have seen cownose in similar situations.. Interesting, orca taking out sail boats, shallow hunting sting ray, and lock-jaw redfish. Seems like something fishy is going on here…Maybe Black Drum will start chasing my topwater