Turtle Rescue

Toward the end of a learn to fly fish trip earlier this week I noticed a painted turtle in floating near the shore of the pond that seemed to be having some trouble swimming. He would float for a while head up and then try to dive without much success.

Since we were finished fishing for the afternoon I used the electric trolling motor to head over to the turtle and see what the problem was. As I got closer I could not see anything wrong with the turtle and thought uh oh this turtle is just dying. I maneuvered the boat in close and picked up the turtle.

Instantly it was obvious why he was having so much trouble. A freshwater mussel had closed onto a turtle toe and was firmly attached. My clients marveled and wondered how it could happen but I have seen fishing lures come back to the boat with a mussel clamped onto a hook in just the same way.

The scenario is that the mussel is feeding (they pump water and filter plankton out) with an open shell, something goes close by (in this case a turtle toe) alarms the mussel and the shell closes quickly. In this case clamping onto what alarmed it in the first place.

At any rate an easy problem to solve with turtle and mussel safely returned to the water. As always interesting stuff is going on outdoors.