Surprise sighting in Eastern Bay

[J.A. Veil]

Last Sat I fished in Eastern Bay in my center console. I found loads of breaking fish, but all were 18" or less. On the way back to the ramp, I had a very special experience. I was more or less in the center of Eastern Bay in 35 ft water depth. I looked over about 50 yds and saw a brown-colored object about the size of a crab pot float. While I was watching, it disappeared. I slowly motored over and found a full sized sea turtle (3-4 ft long) resting at the surface. It raised its head again, spotted me, and quickly dove. A few minutes later I saw the head some distance away. In more than 25 years of boating on the Chesapeake, that was the first live sea turtle I have seen here.

Back in June, Mark and I were fishing at a spot in Eastern Bay about two miles away from where I spotted the sea turtle. We saw a pod of dolphins swimming and feeding. I feel very fortunate to have seen both marine species in estuarine waters in the mid-bay this year.

[Fishinfool]

That's very interesting John. Possibly it has something to do with the general warming of the oceans, and habitats are expanding.

[Alstang1]

I had a similar experience Monday in Keller Bay. From my kayak, in 6 foot of water, I see a grey/brown colored head pop the surface. I had no doubt it was looking directly at me. Only the head broke surface so I'm not sure what it was. It stayed up about 5 seconds each siting.

My first thought was turtle but it was way bigger than any turtle head I had seen in this region. I then thought, can mullet suspend at surface like that, but it was not shiny enough to be mullet. I then thought some kind of beaver mammal type thingy.

I saw it in nearly the same spot 4-5 times. The head was slightly larger than adult mullet but slightly smaller than the large end of a baseball bat. The only thing that makes sense is a juvenile sea turtle. Nothing else could suspend at surface like that. I am still not sure because every time I saw it, it was looking straight at me. I never saw a profile.

Al


Al Supak's iPhone 6 plus using Tapatalk

[willf650]

We been fishing out of a center console for the majority of the summer and we have seen sea turtles fairly regularly. This is basically my first year fishing salt water but I didn't realize they were around here. We also been seeing tons of dolphins and have came across whales on two occasions.

Last Saturday was a two-fer. We had a sea turtle literally swim up to the boat about 2' below the water, dive under the transom and pop up on the other side.


After we saw the turtle we spotted a couple whale spouts so we drove over to check them out.




These sites were at the mouth of the Delaware Bay and I can say that whales have very bad breath as you could smell the stench of the spouts from 75 yds away if you come into their air stream.