we went to spot that is loaded in salt water cats, snapper and lady fish but also gets tarpon, trout, snook reds and of course Jew fish and sharks. well we have this one jewfish that brakes us off fairly often, my buddy desided not to play around, he got the heaviest rod BPS sells and put 100 pound mono on it. we got our baits out and started catching cats and snapper hand over foot. by the way it was raining bad(the weather man said it would stop by 7 but at 10 it had not.) so finally some thing hit a big bait, it was the biggest cat I have every seen, prob. 8 or 9 pounds. then my buddys big rod goes click click click, buzzzzzzzzzzz. We grab it engage it and set back. all that did was tick it off, it took 150 yards of line in less than a min on full drag while palming the spool. went across the channel, under a sailboat around a dock. it finally hung up under a sail boat and we thought we lost. after about 5 mins of constant pressure it started coming back to us. 15 mins later we finally saw it kind of, just a huge splash and we thought we had a monster, well we did just not what we thought. We then saw it long tail. It was a Monster Sting Ray! 5feet Across and at least 5 feet long, it was well over a hundred pounds, after a 25 min fight all on full drag my buddy was totally beat and a little disappointed, he thought he had his white whale so to say, but it was still pretty awesome to see a sting ray that huge.

You do realize they are called Goliath Grouper now?

Closed season on Goliaths and if you catch one have to unhook it in the water.  My guess is was a Mantaray or a big Leopardray, not a  Stingray based on the type of fight you had and the size, ,Mantas are much larger.

I hooked one myself a few weeks on the beach, maybe 4' across on spinning gear, my knot broke after about 15 minutes and almost out of line, no way to stop them on light or medium tackle.

What kind of reel were you using that holds 150 yards of 100 pound test?

Nice report Tommy. It's always nice when the fish unwraps from the pillings.