I do a fair bit of fishing. I enjoy it. Usually, it relaxes me.
And I have caught a lot of things over the years I have been fishing. I’ve caught several types of fish. I’ve caught rocks and trees and bushes. I’ve caught sticks and logs, sometimes with other people’s lures attached. I can now say I’ve caught a snapping turtle.
It was not a plan. I wasn’t trying to catch it. I would have been much happier not to catch the thing. But I did.
I hooked what I thought might be a pretty decent fish. It felt that way. It was fairly heavy. But then I saw it come up to the surface as i reeled in, and knew what it was.
It was a snapping turtle about a foot across. A pretty good sized turtle.
I like turtles. Even snappers. They generally don’t bother me, so I try not to bother them. I’ve even been known for trying to stay relatively motionless so I won’t disturb them when they are laying their eggs. Okay, I was trying to take a nap, but it’s the thought that counts. And I really like to find them when they hatch, just because I like them. Painted turtles are nice, but I like that prehistoric look that snappers have. They really look like a leftover dinosaur.
So I wasn’t happy to hook one. I’ve had them follow bait before, but I have never had one grab it. This one did.
I pulled it to the boat, then sat there thinking about what to do. If I was alone in the boat, or if I had another person with me, I would have netted the turtle, brought it into the boat and used pliers to remove the hook. Sounds easy, but probably wouldn’t be quite as cut a nd dried as that. And there was an issue. I had the dog with me.
My dog likes to go fishing. She tends to get a bit excited when I reel something in, and can’t wait for me to get it into the boat. She likes to sniff the catch and maybe even give it a lick. I’m not sure how the fish feel about this, but she enjoys it. But that sort of think wasn’t going to fly with a snapping turtle. Having a dog and a snapping turtle in a fairly small space didn’t really sound like a good idea. So I was going to have to try to release the turtle without bringing it in the boat.
I brought the turtle over to the side of the boat. The hook was in his upper lip. It was very visible and looked like it might be easy to get at. I pulled the turtle over and reached down with my long nosed fishing pliers.
Now these pliers are fairly long. I’m not going to put my fingers in front of a snapping turtles nose, especially one that has a hook in his face and probably not very happy about it. But I felt the pliers were long enough to keep my fingers out of the turtle’s way, but still be able to get to the hook.
I carefully reached down with the pliers and… it saw me coming. The turtle gave it’s head a shake, broke the line and swam away. I called after it, telling it I would be happy to remove the hook for it, but it was gone.
Hopefully the turtle will find a way to live with the hook or get rid of it and it will be okay.
I even checked the regulation booklet when I got home. I didn’t see turtles covered in there. There doesn’t seem to be a limit. And there’s not spot on the license to report it.
So I guess it just goes on my bucket list. And I hope there’s no repeat.
