I have heard and read a lot about how bass like to eat baby turtles. Most accounts suggest that it is more than just being hungry. Bass hate them and attack them out of aggression. The reason: turtles like to rob bass nests and the bass don’t want them around.
In visiting with some of my saltwater angling friends it appears that marine critters like baby turtles too. There are plenty of antidotes and scientific information that suggest marine turtles are just another food source. In this case it appears to be more of a predator/prey situation. When the baby sea turtles hatch and return to the ocean the predator fish, being opportunistic feeders, don’t mind slurping them up.
Florida east coast fishing guide Capt. Melinda Buckley reports seeing melees of fish eating turtles along the beach. “When I worked with sea turtle nests in the summer during my college years I would see snook and tarpon slurping them up like candy just about daylight,” says Buckley. “I always wondered why people don’t use a turtle replica on the beach in summer.”
Capt. Mike Peppe, another Florida guide reported similar predator activity by jack crevalle eating baby turtles. “I have watch schools of big jacks thrash the sea turtles as they swim into the surf from their nesting areas.” No one knows for sure if the jacks knew where to be at the right time, but most anglers I talked with felt it was just an occasion that the fish take advantage of when they see it.
Buckley also reported that some of her offshore friends have found baby turtles inside cobia and dolphin when filleting at the cleaning table.
More and more reports suggests that a baby turtle is simply not likely to be an opportunity that a hungry fish would pass up. If they make it off the beach they head for deeper water where they travel on the ocean currents hiding in seaweed beds for safety.
Port Canaveral captain, Jeff Brown, Sr confirmed the mahi-mahi claim saying, “Sorry no pics, but I have cleaned mahi-mahi with several turtles in them.”
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