my mate found this turtle this morning on the way back from our surf took him 2hrs to free it

Thats one big turtle. Mega karma for your friends.

Never seen a Leatherback in WA before.
I hate turtles. Ungrateful, snappy, foul breathed mother****ers that can take a hand off at the wrist. About as welcome as a Cowtail Ray on the sorting tray.

Edit* reading that it sounds really bad
Nothing against turtles apart from the fact that they're really hard to get over the side of a trawler without getting bitten, having stinging fish flung at you by errant flippers or being breathed upon by what smells like a rotting vagina. Nasty, nasty creatures.

What the turtles or the vaginas

And not very bright either. We used to scratch our trawlers Id # on the shell when we caught the smelly bastards in our nets. Used to catch the same turtle all night long sometimes. Probably a bit different nowdays with net design and bycatch rules though.
Crayfished for 14 seasons though and never heard of one of the smelly buggers caught in a set of floats Highly unusual I would think.
W
Jees I don't miss bullrouts, stripeys and happy moments one little bit Only trawler crew would understand these.

You wanna try those Cowtails, dunno whether you get them over here, I only ever fished out of Cairns. It's an exercise in terror getting one of them off the tray as they can strike forwards over their head. Like a fuggin 250lb scorpion.
Yes stripeys, bullrouts, happy moments, stonefish ahh the memories. I've still got a patch of dead skin on my finger 22 years later, where a stripey spine went through the knuckle.

Who cares, so long as people get their Xmas crayfish right?

@ $36 bucks a cray only the ametuers will be gettin them this year I think. Im guessing they are ametuer pots due to the numbers painted on.
Had to do the mercy dash to town one morning when the other decky got wacked by a big ray tail. Severed the sciatic nerve. Lot of pain.
W