Need HELP with OBX/EI fishing gear/setup (long)

[scooter pie]

I spent a week on Emerald Isle in the end of August and had some of the best fishing experiences ever. FYI, I am mostly a freshwater guy and am pretty new to fishing for big game fish in saltwater.

I was mostly fishing the inlet and the bars that were close by - typically from mid-afternoon to about midnight. So after getting a couple nice flounder and small blues, I decided to try my hand at catching something bigger when the tide started flowing out at about dusk.

I put on a #6 hook with a 2 ft 100# leader on my 10ft rod with about 200 yards of 40# mono on my spool. I hooked on a 7" finger mullet I had caught with a cast net, and cast the live bait into the strong outgoing tide and let the current carry the bait out about 100 yards. I set rod in a spike and leaned it against my beach cart for extra support. After forgetting about this rod for about an hour, while fishing the inlet pools for smaller fish, I suddenly hear the reel start screaming as it was spitting out line. The rod was nearly folded in half. I ran over and grabbed the rod out of the spike that was nearly pulled out of the ground, if it hadn't been for my beach cart support.

I have never had anything pull on me like this before. It was much stronger than the 30# ray I had hooked the year before. This thing literally pulled line from me for about 2 minutes before I could even begin to spool it in. During the ensuing 15 minute battle, this thing ran in every direction on long and powerful runs, broken up with 30 second rest periods. When I finally got this thing to about 50 ft of the shore, it spit the hook (or so I thought). Heartbroken I reeled my line in only to find that the very thick wire hook now looked more like an open "L" shape .

I was amazed. . . . . So I put on the strongest and thickest cast Mustad hook in my box (#7). Rehooked a mullet and tossed it out again and waited. Within 15 minutes, I hear the reel screaming again. I quickly got on the rod and began trying to fight it in, with a renewed confidence in my hook selection. . . . . . but this thing went on a run that I couldn't stop . . . . At first I let it run . . . . but then I realized it was close to running off what remained of the 100 yards that was on my spool. I tried to regain some line and I reeled in about a 1/4 inch of line, when this thing went on a monster run that spooled me in a few seconds. With the last "twang" of the snapping line against the empty spool, I started getting really pissed .

Later that night I lost 6 more huge bites due to broken line. All on new 40# mono ? On several occasions it looked like someone had run a razor across a length of the 40# mono. And not all the breaks were at near the bait as would be suspected by a shark hitting the line with it's tail etc. Some breaks occured several dozen meters up. Slivers of the mono were curled up on lengths that were not cut through??? Could it have been something on the sea floor??? What the hell can do this??? Sharks???

Anyway that was my last & best night in EI, and I would like the opinions of the experts on my setup so next year I'm thoroughly prepared.

So what I am looking for are general suggestions on line/rigs for this area to pull in all the fish that "took me out to the shed" . I am thinking about spooling up with 300yards of 65# braid with a 30ft 120# mono leader (or perhaps a 200#+ steel wire leader). Reel and Rod considerations would also be helpful as I will buy whatever I need to prevent from getting spooled again (cost is not an issue). Is this overkill??? I just want to be able to wind in whatever I get at the end of my line, whether it be a 6ft shark, 100# ray, big drum, or whatever it could have been.

By the way, I am in it for sport only and release pretty much everything.

Thanks for your opinions and advice.

[crashq]

Sounds like a "big" ray or shark. While we haven't big sharks yet ( biggest yet is about 4-5 feet) down on the South Core banks, we have hooked huge rays. My biggest was pushing 5 feet in width an about 80-100lbs. It took me roughly an hour and 15 minutes to land on my 11 foot Lamiglas. I was pulling so hard that the rod bent into the handle below the reel. You could see rod blank between the wraps in the factory cork tape. The gaps in the cork tape are still there today.

If you get a combo that is big enough to routinely land these large sharks and rays, you will be limiting your casting distance and decreasing your chance with the gamefish species. If your rig carries 300 yards of 20-25 lbs test, that should be plenty for nearly all drum. Thedrag system is more important. Get a rell with a smooth drag so you can apply the max drag with fear of burning it up and breaking off.

[scooter pie]

Now that you mention it, I was fishing on Bogue's Pier late last August (2005) and I watched a huge migration (hundreds if not thousands) of some of the largest rays I had ever seen. Some looked to be 8ft across.

The line of rays extended as far as you could see during that clear sunny day. They were swimming about 4-6 wide about 100 ft offshore (but luckily right under the pier). There were so many they made a brown streak in the water while swimming along the entire shoreline. The parade lasted for probably over an hour, and they seemed to be swimming about 3-5 miles per hour. It was an amazing sight. . .

Is this a yearly event - this ray migration ???

A guy on the Kingfish (outter most) section of the pier caught a ray on his rig during this migration (about a 5 footer). Funny how I forgot about these big rays. Guess I figured they were "just passing through."

[Robby]

scooterpie i saw those rays tooooo....we seriously were there the same day....i remember that day n i was amazed by how many of those friggin rays there were

[crashq]

I can't tell you whether the ray migration is an annual event. We do see lots of rays down on th e Core banks, but most are 5-30lbs. Occassionally we get a big one, but most of the time we break them off (on purpose or by accident).