the killing of ray....

Hi all i was takling to a well know skipper in galway last week and was talking about ray fishing out in little killary, i have fished little killary for over 15 years now and have seen the numbers of ray there getting smaller and smaller, so i mention it to him and he told me that if someone kills a ray and then throws the left over body back into the see, that other ray can get the scent of dead ray that they will slowly move out of the area and will not return. just woundered has anyone else heard of this.. in my experince i have seen other anglers doing what im talking about... so maybe it would be worth a think about.....

Fished in that killary too over past few years and hav noticed a difference in amount of fish we hav caught. Ye could be right in wat ur saying. I used to fish a lot in dingle and the same thing happened. Over the years the fishing got poorer and on some occasions we got nothin in recent sessions.

thanks for that Robbie... maybe there is some truth in what the skipper said... would love to hear from someone who might have a better insight to this......

i heard that story before but i don't think it makes any difference,i fished a harbor before where there were at least 10 dead ray on the bottom that were pulled from the fishermen nets and i still caught ray 5 ray

if you had a chat with the lads up in scuba dive west they might be able to give you a better insight on what is happening under the water in little killary

i think the ray numbers declining has a lot to do with over fishing,not the over fishing of ray but the over fishing of mackerel and crab,if the mackerel are not there there is less food dropping to the sea bed for the ray to feed on and from talking to the crab men they said they are catching less and less,the ray move around after the food as well,they don't stay in the one place,one ray was tagged off roundstone and 10 days later it was caught again off donegal

other ray can get the scent of dead ray that they will slowly move out of the area

I heard similar stories related to sharks. Since rays and sharks are the same class of fish It might be the element of truth in that.

Also, a few years ago witnessed the situation where dogfish was killed and ripped apart carcass thrown in to the water (supposedly for chumming purposes). Baits stopped almost instantly.

I wouldn't worry about 'will not return' bit. Decrease in numbers is caused by over-fishing and progressing degradation of the Oceans. Just like gfkelly1969 says.

other ray can get the scent of dead ray that they will slowly move out of the area

I heard similar stories related to sharks. Since rays and sharks are the same class of fish It might be the element of truth in that.

Also, a few years ago witnessed the situation where dogfish was killed and ripped apart carcass thrown in to the water (supposedly for chumming purposes). Baits stopped almost instantly.

I wouldn't worry about 'will not return' bit. Decrease in numbers is caused by over-fishing and progressing degradation of the Oceans. Just like gfkelly1969 says.

I seen a documentary on sharks as well and they don't go near dead sharks thet just run!!

Tommy
It also said that a shark will only bite you where your wet!!

yes its a fact when commercial fisherman are on the ray they keep all guts aboard till they move out of the area reckon if guts go over board it will clear them off the ground and thats intresting about the sharks a few years back we were out after blues we had a great start with 5 fish first hour and a half the fifth fish bled a good bit he swam off after a bit of reviving but so did every other shark in the area not a tap for the rest of the day only thing i can think is the shark blood in the water cleared them

Doing a quick bit of research there could be scientific evidence to support your theory even though the links are a bit tenuous -
I was always lead to believe that skate/rays were winged out as soon after death as possible because as the internal organs degrade they release ammonia very quickly. As a buyers guide to wings, 'because there are no gills or eyes to test for freshness smell is one of the main tests, anything that smells remotely of household bleach should be rejected due to high ammonia content'.
In aquaculture and aquariums ray have been known to be very prone to ammonia poisoning due to there own internal organs inability to break it down into harmless compounds.
Is this too much of a coincidence? or is it as I suspect that rays avoid areas of higher than average ammonia levels in the water. This would support most of the earlier comments.

Fish can “smell” danger!

When one fish is injured, others nearby may dart, freeze, huddle, swim to the bottom or leap from the water. The other fish know that their school mate has been harmed. But how?

In the 1930s, Karl von Frisch, the famous ethologist, noted this behavior in minnows. He theorized that injured fish release a substance that is transmitted by smell and causes alarm. But Dr. von Frisch never identified the chemical composition of the signal. He just called it schreckstoff, or “scary stuff.”

Schreckstoff is a long-standing biological mystery, but now researchers may have solved a piece of it. In a study published in February in Current Biology, Suresh Jesuthasan, a neuroscientist at the Biomedical Sciences Institutes in Singapore, and his colleagues isolated sugar molecules called chondroitins from the outer mucus of zebra fish.
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abs ... h=standard

They found that when these molecules are broken into fragments, as they might be when the fish’s skin is injured, and added to water, they prompt alarm behavior in other fish. At low concentrations, the fish were “mildly perturbed,” Dr. Jesuthasan said. At high concentrations, they stopped darting altogether and froze in place for an hour or longer.

He and his colleagues also showed that neurons in the olfactory bulb of these fish were activated when exposed to the sugar fragments. In a sense, the fish seemed to “smell” the injury.

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/healt ... ref=health

Of course there is also the fact that every ray killed is one less to be caught again! And at the risk of stirring a hornet's nest I'll quote a west of Ireland tackle dealer a number of years ago bemoaning the drop in numbers of ray etc. "some of the Dublin lads don't put much back"....

That point is very through of sharks, when they get the smell of dead same species, they can be missing for a couple of years from the area. Seen it in great whites off Guadeloupe Island after the attack by the orca on one a few years back

Of course there is also the fact that every ray killed is one less to be caught again! And at the risk of stirring a hornet's nest I'll quote a west of Ireland tackle dealer a number of years ago bemoaning the drop in numbers of ray etc. "some of the Dublin lads don't put much back"....

Hornets nest

Ive fished two session in the west in the past three weeks and between us we have well over a 100 ray up to 9lbs. All caught by Dublin lads and all returned alive.

There is no harm in one or two for the pot but there will be always some idiot with a black bag of wings.

Doesn't mater if there from Dublin Cork or Galway.

well lads thanks again for all the replies.. so maybe there is some truth in it... so maybe ,if one was to take a ray or two for that table, be careful of where you put the guts and body of the ray.. hopefully this thread will help others when they come to fish for some ray and want to take one or two home for the table...and i am talking about all anglers in general...so think before you cut.... thanks again all... thight lines to all......from the ray capital of ireland..lol....

Of course there is also the fact that every ray killed is one less to be caught again! And at the risk of stirring a hornet's nest I'll quote a west of Ireland tackle dealer a number of years ago bemoaning the drop in numbers of ray etc. "some of the Dublin lads don't put much back"....

Wouldn't be an old guy set in his ways by any chance?... One that doesn't like dubs maybe?


Im a dub and to be honest and I hate comments like above... I assume ALL galway anglers put back all ray? Like **** they do, like every other angler they take some and release others.

I take, only what I eat, and that's very little. Its to do with years of trawling, dredging and complete stupid-ness by people.

EVERY single type of fish that is sold in a mongers is declining.

Hi all.. look lads i did not put this post up as a slagging match for anyone,, so if anyone has any comment like them please post somewhere else..... mods can you please remove any post that is not related to this thread... thanks......

Don't know if this is OT or not but does concern the killing of ray . . .

If you are taking one for the pot, what is the humane way of dispatching a ray? I would hate to take the wings off while the creature is still alive.

ha mate. good question. i myself take the odd one or two for the table and i find the best way is to put the point of the knife right through the body just behinde the head in the centre of the body, i find when you do that it cuts the cord and the fish is killed straight away, but after that dont leave it to long or you will end up what is called pissy ray... maybe others have a better way....

Don't know if this is OT or not but does concern the killing of ray . . .

If you are taking one for the pot, what is the humane way of dispatching a ray? I would hate to take the wings off while the creature is still alive.

clifden new mark 017.jpg

hope this photo will point you in the right direction...

Don't know if this is OT or not but does concern the killing of ray . . .

If you are taking one for the pot, what is the humane way of dispatching a ray? I would hate to take the wings off while the creature is still alive.

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Cheers, are you saying not to wait too long to take the wings off after doing the deed?

Cheers, are you saying not to wait too long to take the wings off after doing the deed?

If you wait to long ammonia seeps into the flesh of the fish, if you are eating ray and you get a smell of bleach, even the slightest hint, bin it. Can make you quiet ill and spending ALLOT of time on the jax!