"Within the next minute she saw the bait on the ground, went for it, ate it and it was all attached to the longline, hook and all. She had to have emergency surgery as the hook had gone right down and got caught in her stomach lining."
After an extensive amount of time on the surgery table at the vet clinic, Spurgeon said Chessie was making a strong recovery and was beginning to eat again.
"The vet told us it was pretty fiddly getting the hook out of her stomach lining.
"We're not having a go at the fishermen because they were really great and tried to help as much as they could. I think they were quite shocked and upset as well.