wife got off early on tues, so we decided to go to the beach between mexico beach and panama city to see if we could find some sand fleas and turn them into pompano. stopped and picked up some fresh shrimp to use while looking for fleas. had the rods in the pipes and looking for bait when one doubled over. i thought it was a sting ray, but turned out to be this guy instead. we put him in our beach cart with some water and placed a wet towel on his back.
he had became entangled in my line, but not hooked. he had old line on his left front flipper and it had cut into the flesh to the bone. he also had two lines in his mouth. we called the local turtle rescue # and they came to help him. said he needed antibiotics and they would remove the hooks from his mouth.
cool thing was it is a kemp-ridley , which are extremely rare and critically endangered. after the turtle people left, still had some shrimp and daylight left, so i tossed out and sat down to watch the rods. the right one double over, hauled in another kemp-ridley, only smaller and no hooks ,just tangled. got that cleared, didn't even bother to throw out again, when the left rod doubled over. a third one had got caught in the line. i told the wife, pack it up, i am not catching any more turtles. we called the turtle people back to let them know about the others and they said it was very rare, usually only see 1 , maybe 2 a year.
first one of these i've caught
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