It was down to Plymouth last week for our first chance to fish in well over a month. We were set to film some moving footage of the new MTI 20/40 Braid and 15lb Class Offshore rods in action. It’s our intention to show those of you interested in MTI rods at least something of what they are capable of and not just trust to words.

The weather was not great, but we were scheduled out with Malc Jones aboard his boat “Sea Angler” and Malc said we’d take a look outside and take it from there. “Outside” was bumpy, but not too bad, so we settled over a wreck in something over a 100ft of water. It was the last three hours of the ebb, but prospects were vague due to the weather.

Fresh mackerel flappers went down and within a few minutes the first straps started to come aboard. These were small fish up to about 10lbs and we knew we’d need to wade through a few of these before the bigger fish found the baits.

This was exactly the case and within a half hour our first 20lb eel hit the deck before being released. Steadily the fishing improved and by the end of the morning session we were hammering the eels with several in the 30lb plus bracket.

Sea conditions were worsening though, so just when the fishing was hitting top form Malc had no choice but to bring us in to fish the inside of the Tamar Estuary. We had the chance of a few species here, but also with the outside chance of a thornback ray.

Mike Jr had been on the camera all day, but picked up a rod for the first time and started banging out species including pouting, goldsinny wrasse, cuckoo wrasse, poor cod, whiting and dogs.

I chose to stick it out for a ray and was fishing fresh prawn. Right at the end of the day I had a gentle rattle that felt like a ray’s wing just brushing against the main line. I fed a little free line and waited. I felt a short series of tugs, then the fish moved away.

Setting the hook, the 15lb tip folded over as the ray clung to the seabed. Keeping steady pressure on the fish it moved within 30 seconds and motored off down tide a short way at a steady pace.

Turning the fish and keeping full pressure on I started to pump the fish up. Several times it used its flat profile to hang in the tide, but steadily came up through the water column. It broke surface and looked well in to double figures.

Weighed on the boat scales in a flat calm sea it made 15lb 2ozs and was a cracking fish to blood a new rod with on camera. The fish went back alive to grow some more!