Texas anglers’ video captures birth of four babies in net
EDITOR’S NOTE: The language in the attached video is pretty coarse. If you’re easily offended or you’re watching at work or with kids, you might want to view it with the speakers turned down.
While jigs, hooks, weights, lures and extra line are pretty common in most tackle boxes, anglers don’t routinely tote around clean sheets, hot water or other supplies necessary to assist with a live birth.
Fortunately for Aaron Pellerin, the ‘mom’ he witnessed having babies was self-sufficient and seemed to handle the process like a pro.
Pellerin was fishing with Josh Vell Monday evening around 8 p.m. on the edge of Sabine Lake in Old River Cove near the Neches River when he caught his very first stingray.
Before he released her, the Port Neches angler’s one stingray turned into five.
“It was pretty wild. I finally got her in the net and got her in the boat and started getting the hook out of her, then she started peeing everywhere,” Pellerin said. “I guess that actually was her water breaking.
“Then we realized she had four little tails hanging out of her.”
Pellerin caught the stingray in about 6-feet of water with a Carolina-rigged live mud minnow.
“It took us a second to realize what was going on,” he said. “We put her back down into the water in the net where she could breathe and just held her in the water watching her give birth.”
In a matter of just a couple of minutes, each of the 6-inch diameter babies were born, and they were all returned to the water.
“They all swam off together,” Pellerin said. “It was pretty wild. We were kind of blown away.”
He likely won’t ever forget his first-ever stingray, and was happy both he and the mom were not injured in the whole process.
“The first thing that came to mind was Steve Irwin,” Pellerin said, referring to the popular Animal Planet host who was killed by an 8-foot stingray off the Australian coast in 2006. “I didn’t want to play around with her too much since I had never caught one before.”