The world according to me....

With our summer months drawing to a close and temperatures gently cooling off, the pound net fishing season is ramping up. Larisa has some great stories from her many trips to the pound nets, and even when nothing outrageously exciting happens, it is still great to be out in the water. Last week, I was lucky enough to be able to go out on the regular turtle sampling trip on Friday. We found several healthy turtles swimming in the pounds of the nets, eating their fill of fish and shellfish, but I was surprised to see nearly a ton of menhaiden in one net. It took us four tries to get all the fish from the pound net into the boat, and it didn't all fit in the boxes (hence the fish up to Joanne's shins in the photo above). We also saw two dead turtles, cause of death unknown. They had both floated into the lead of the lead of one of the poundnets - when I pushed down the lead, they both just floated away (photo below). It was a reminder that autumn also signals an increase in dead stranded turtles in North Carolina.