This morning I had a session on the beach and introduced my son-in-law to the joys of hooking large fish. I had already told him that should I get a ray I would hand him the rod and he could play it out. Just for once the best laid plans worked beautifully.

Second cast my rod buckled and the reel started vacating line at an alarming rate. I simply disengaged the bait runner and the ray hooked itself and I duly handed over the rod. There was a nasty set of breakers running and the chances were always stacked against the fish being landed, however, Chris had fifteen minutes of true excitement until the hook pulled in the breakers.

A few minutes later my other rod had an all too familiar take and this time I enjoyed a twenty minute fight with a ray we put about forty pounds. I did land this fish and after a picture session, it was returned to the water.

My son-in-law was absent during the latter part of the fight and when he joined me to take a picture with his cell phone, he told me his own rod had been subject to a take he considered bordered personal abuse and the line screamed from the reel. He told me the fish headed straight out to sea, it then broached and he thought it landed on the line and once more they parted company.

It's always the big one that gets away and as I was somewhat occupied, I saw none of it. I did tell him I noticed a large splash about 100 metres from shore but I took no notice of it. Enough excitement for one day, we headed for home.

I have shown my wife the basics in using my video camera, as such she duly recorded the entire battle I had with the ray I was hooked up with. When I got home I uploaded the movie to my computer and ran it through to check the footage.

Well I couldn't believe my eyes. I have my ray in the breakers at my feet but then I noticed in the distance a commotion on the sea's surface. I played this frame by frame and then froze one picture and downloaded it as a still ... this is the result.

Chris said it was a big fish, I told him he was wrong, this is a bloody big fish.