The Great Manta weighed over 5,000 pounds and was caught in Brielle, NJ, 1933.

Zebco?

202 and a crawler.

Wonder if he decoyed em with that little one he has stuck on his hand?

doubt that lol . i snagged one off the end of bobhall pier that was at least 14ft acroos it proceeded to strip about 200 bucks of line of my reel before i could even think about breaking it off.

That would have made Steve Irwin have 2d thoughts.

Not that a 5000 pound wild animal is not dangerous, but Manta Rays have no barb.

What does a 5000 lb Manta Ray eat?


Anything it wants to.

And it wants plankton. They're filter feeders.

4 pound test

and, on 6# test line!!

Saw one about that size while fishing off a bridge in Miami back in the '60s. Looked like a big black tarp swimming through the water.

Had one about 6 feet across swim by my Dad's Bertram 31 off Pensacola. Threw a lure at it hoping there was a cobia underneath, but no cigar.

Amazing what you can see out there.

Them things edible? If so I bet they were sick of eating it by the time they ran out.

My Google Fu is strong today. Real story but pic is a model of the real ray. Small photo of caught ray with story here-
http://www.deepseanews.com/2014/10/the-mysterious-case-of-the-missing-manta-bits/

I love humans.

It's big! It is incredible! Let's kill it and take a photo!"

Link says it was entangled in the fishing boat's anchor and anchor line, almost capsizing the boat and Coast Guard shot it multiple times.

One can only hope they had a refrigerator handy.

well maybe the photo is a hoax but manta rays have been documented with a wing span of 21 ft.

Link that I posted stated that the photo was of a "mount" of the ray and there is a photo of the actual ray hanging from a boat lift, size looks about the same. Not a hoax but there was a full size mount created for display. Thought it was an interesting explanation of how the ray in original photo looked so pristine.

Nope. Story says that is a baby born after the ray was brought ashore.

Now we know where the engineers got the idea for the Stealth bomber!!