Butterfly Ray @ New Smyrna Beach

Bought a new 5' castnet at Walmart for about $32.00 and headed to NSB. Last night both causeways were very busy. I arrived in NSB around 10:30PM hoping to get some fishing done. The north causeway was lined up with crab traps all the way down the pier so I didn't even bother, and the south causeway had alot of people in my usual fishing spot. But the good thing about the south causeway is there is plenty of space to spread out. I walked down to the first light on the seawall and thats where I was seeing some shrimp. So thats where I started with my castnet and almost immediately I was catching shrimp. I netted about 8-10 medium to large shrimp, then walked back to the main pier to get some mullet and spots. A few runs of mullet and only a few spots netted in the bait bucket. Finially some people were leaving and I was able to get started fishing in my favorite spot, I'd say around 1:30AM. Then shortly after 3:00AM I heard my baitfeeder go off and I ran over to pick up my rod. I felt the pull and set the hook, boom FISH ON! It took a few minutes to reel in because it dove down under some rocks for a bit, but I waited and eventually it came out of the rocks so I could continue reeling. It was heavy. I was reeling against the strong current on top of it, so it felt like a really HUGE fish. Got it up to the dock but it was still too deep to get a look at it just yet. Carefully reeled it up and got a view of what was on the other end, a big Butterfly Ray was hooked in the fin. By the end of the night I still had about 11 mullet to take home for some frozen bait.