sand turtle bait

The last time I tried to catch sand turtles I came up empty.  Today, I was fishing the Windward side and had plopped my cut bait at the water’s edge while zipping up my tackle sling bag.  When I reeled up my bait there were two sand turtles attached to it.  I quickly bagged the sand turtles (mole crabs) and dropped the weight and bait back on the wet sand.

2 sand turtles battling

As the water ebbed and flowed up the sloping beach, I noticed moving lumps under the sand.  Sure enough more sand turtles were attached to the bait.  Catching sand turtles couldn’t be easier than this.

obake weke

Too bad catching fish with the sand turtles wasn’t as easy.  I got a few weak nibbles on them, but caught a mess of small omilus and this obake weke on the cut bait.

I brought a few of the sand turtles home and put them in a tub with live opae.  Even though the opae are smaller than the turtles, they grabbed at the turtles’ legs and tried to pull them backwards so the turtles couldn’t burrow in the sand.  I guess it’s a shrimp eat crab world.

I rescued the sand turtles and put them in their own bucket free of sand turtle hungry critters.

Click here to read an old post on catching and using sand turtles for bait.