Snapping turtle

[johnr]

Soup

 

[svnmag]

The best thing you can do is..................nothing. Just leave them alone. Let the kids know to stay away from them and everything will be fine.

I'd actually rather have a few snappers than hundreds of painted. I'd bust a cap word either way if it were my pond.

 

[shorthairsrus]

Mother nature works in a wierd way --- that gator for example - he did'nt eat that kid -- she new she made a mistake and the mistake cost how many lives. I have no use for snappers -- they are prop eaters and i am scared to death of them when swimming/walking in muck water.

 

[MSA]

Living down south when i was 10 we figured out how to catch them with a stomped sunfish tied to a rope. We'd drag it in slow and then jump on the turtle when it was close enough to shore grabbing it by the tail or the sides of the shell. we'd bring em home and put them in a kiddie pool for a few days till we got bored and let em go. The biggest ones were around 70lbs.

 

[NodakBuckeye]

Strange this thread showed up now and today I saw a big snapper on the side of the gravel road near the Big Muddy Creek east of Almont. First snapper I've seen anywhere for many years.

Married with children I suppose. :;:smokin

 

[dean nelson]

My above is better handling than the "tail carry".

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The size of my above post is not much of an exaggeration if any.

You try and pick up a snapping turtle up here like he did and you will walk away with less fingers then you started with. What he had there isn't what we have up here or even the same species for that matter.

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I've seen firsthand what large snappers can do to carp trapped overnight in the bag of a seine. Holy crap for carnage! Most fish escaped once the snappers attacked, but before holes got torn in the bag they would just swim right up to the buffalos and take a single bite out of them. Some of the bites were "clean cut" hunks of meat missing and as wide as my damn hand. I have lived with a very great respect for the power of their bite ever since. I was maybe 16 yrs old at the time and the day we bagged those excess fish was the same day I had to wade around in with the fish throwing the snappers out. Must have been around 6 of them and I had never before (or since) seen one of the size of the top three. This was down in a bay just north of Deepwater.

I put this carp out on a big nylon stringer at 11 today and this is all that was left at 8. I ran the stringer through one eye and out the other so that it was straight through the skull. All that was left was a bit of a gill cover and part of the lips!

 

[You]

oh wow, make up some bs spook story, take some pics of your trashed 'tackle' and call Jeremy Wade's producers. I don't think he's done a reptile episode yet.....

 

[LBrandt]

Back in the mid 60's I worked at the local lumberyard which was right next to a grain elevator. An old ford pickup with side boards up about 4' and big wire mesh across the top was setting there waiting to use the scale. The dam thing was full of big and I mean big snapping turtles. The guy had a permit to trap a certain amount of turtles by weight from the Wild Rice River and local creeks. I am sure he had at least a couple that went 70 to 100# because their heads barely fit through 6" wire mesh. He told me he took them to the Twin cites to sell. His pickup looked like it would not make it 50 miles, no overhead I guess.

 

[svnmag]

Correct about the handling, I forgot how much they can retract their heads. Sorry.

 

[MSA]

yeah, don't grab common snappers the way you see them grab gator snappers on TV.

 

[Lycanthrope]

Your best bet to catch one, instead of using heavier line is to use strong line on a fishing rod, so they can pull out drag, but you can reel it back in when you want it. Use a dead gopher for bait, preferably ripped open with guts hanging out and use hooks designed to rust away rather quickly. Id use my paddle fishing rod with 60lb braid on it.

 

[svnmag]

I would like to talk more about snapping turtles.

 

[Mort]

You try and pick up a snapping turtle up here like he did and you will walk away with less fingers then you started with. What he had there isn't what we have up here or even the same species for that matter.

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I put this carp out on a big nylon stringer at 11 today and this is all that was left at 8. I ran the stringer through one eye and out the other so that it was straight through the skull. All that was left was a bit of a gill cover and part of the lips!

You gonna need a bigga boat.....

 

[dean nelson]

Put out three carp last night to see what would happen. One is gone one just has a head and the third is 50% striped. Deffently don't think I would dangle my toes off the dock anytime soon.

 

[dean nelson]