No Butts and a self rescue.

You guys should go over to the rockwall sometime.  The bite was on fire sunday at the wall for about 45 minutes in the afternoon.  One guy and his buddy landed 4 butts and a striper, and the boats had a good showing too.  I got one take down, but no hook up, on a live shiner from mike's.  Good to hear that your safe and got a lesson from it too!

P.S. Did you pull up a hippopotamus?

Keith 

Hey Keith, we should do ARW sometimes, but our thing now with OP has become personal, until we land a butt there, we are going to keep at it.

Hippo eh?  Funny stuff, it does kind of look like one.

Good Deal! keep your  eye on the prize. You guys are going to all the places that work. I'm not sure what the deal is....maybe the butts are taking it personally too! 
Keith

I didn't want this to turn into a wader vs wetsuit debate.  i like my wetsuit, like i said it has a zipper, i can easily pee out of it. 
Both have merits and have been used for waaaaaaaaaaaay longer then i have been around kayak forums.

Good to hear everything went OK Tom. Sorry for the jinks. Next time I'll
say you will not catch any fish. Perhaps it'll be opposite and you'll catch your
limits.

Jedmo

Could have been worse, wind is the enemy, and big swell makes me sick!

Way to self-rescue. 

I actually thought this post was pretty cool because I never saw a bat ray hit an artificial before (am I seeing it wrong in the picture?).  Or did you just snag it in the head?  Or was the hoochie basically loaded up with squid?

(Hmmm bat rays on a 6-weight fly rod....? I think I am getting a new idea.)

Tom next time you guys should just duck into the harbor and land there =)

Your hat was dry?

That recovery would have been a hit on YouTube.

pete, bat rays will hit artificials occasionally, but tom was trolling herring behind the hoochie.

Your hat was dry?

That recovery would have been a hit on YouTube.

Yeah, crazy, my hat did stay dry.  From that I gottta say, I love my PFD 

BTW, the hoochie was in front of a herring.

This is serious stuff and the less prepard would have been in more trouble than they think.....you had the right stuff and the right reaction.
Thanks for sharing this and a Real WARNING to all who paddle in the bay, heavy current, wind OR both!!

Wow, what a report!   Glad you are OK.  IT was a close one.    Any number of variables could have resulted in a very different outcome.    Its a good thing you knew exactly what you were doing and had the foresight to have prepared in advance for this kind of thing.   Your post and the valuable comments provided by everyone else are important lessons for all of us.     I am sure this string will have prevented some future disasters. 

Right on, NCKA!