Talkin' Shit About A Pretty Sunset

My first screw-you from Chesapeake stingrays was in 2003 when I was wading from a late-night barbecue back to the boat and stepped on enough big rays that I was knocked off balance.

And now these bastards are posing a dire threat to my precious Bay. From Bay Journal:

"And they can have voracious appetites. Cownose rays are, after all, relatively large. Adult males average about 35 inches in width and weigh about 26 pounds. At one aquaculture project ... a school of cownose rays ate 60,000 oysters in a single night."

60,000!! Those sons of bitches are taking my beloved oysters and destroying the Bay as they go. (Watch this video about the importance of oysters to the health of the Bay). And they're killing the Bay grasses as well:

“If a school of rays come in, the area looks like a bomb field ... There are craters everywhere, and we can see large mats of uprooted grass floating around.”

The problem is that no one wants to eat these beasts. Would you order "Cownose Stingray" from a restaurant menu? People have been trying to develop a local fishery and market for these terrible-tasting monsters to no success. I've heard cownose ray smells noxious when cooked and are bloody as hell when brought onto a boat.

So I'm going to do my small part to improve the health of the Chesapeake: Me and my friends are going to kill as many cownose rays as possible with a bow-and-arrow during my annual sailing trip. The plan is to tie a fishing line and rod to the end of an arrow. We'll then be on the lookout for rays schooling up the Chesapeake a la Captain Quint in Jaws. As soon as one is spotted, we shoot. I plan to try and eat the meat, but if it tastes as terrible as they say, I have no problem killing them and throwing them back as crab food.

This is the moral thing to do. It's not like we're gonna go out and kill spotted owls or spear rockfish.

(Photo credit)