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this guy is crazy...

I see the occasional Snapping turtle on my property. All females, all trying to lay their eggs in the same flower bed. One thing I do not do is get too close to them.... like for instance swimming around in a nasty pond with them. I "grab them" with a shovel. It's real simple. You put the business end of the shovel in front of their mouth and then let them bite it... and they most definitely will bite it. When they snap down on the shovel, start dragging them to wherever you planned on bringing them until they let go and then repeat the process until you get there. I tried using a tree branch one time and the jaws bit right through it. Using the metal on the end of a shovel seems to work best.


I kept waiting for him to catch a good-sized (large) one, but he never did. All of the ones I've seen at my place were much older/bigger/meaner than the ones he caught.
 
I have a friend that catches them in nets. He gets around 200 a year. He states the only way to grab them is right above the headon the shell and the vary back of the shell. If you grab them by the sides a turtle can bring its head around the side and get you. He was bit once. Said it was very nasty. Only way he got the turtle to let go was cut its head off. Then the bite got infected and he was close to loosing the finger.
 
When my nephew was 5 or 6, they came out here to KS for the first time. We went hiking, swimming in the creek that went through my property and came upon a big a$$ gator turtle. Nephew reaches down to pick it up and we stopped him just as the turtle was zeroing in on his hand.

I grabbed a big stick and showed him what would have happened to his hand! Turtle snapped that branch in half like it was a toothpick :ecit

He's 18 now and I haven't seen one since.
 
we don't get many snappers around here, but are on the main path between lakes for the gopher turtles. i always customize them with sharpies when i see one in the yard so i can tell them apart. the flamed one ended up in a neighbors pool about 2 months after the flames were applied. you should have heard that conversation....
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This reminds me of the story about 8 years ago. Wifey calls me at work, saying there's a turtle out back chasing the dogs in the back yard! Huh? Go home, look around, nothing. Next day, she calls again, says the turtle is climbing the chain link fence temporarily installed while the Garage Majal is being built. Go home, find nothing. Third day, she calls, and says she found it! Come home quick! I do, and find a very lethargic turtle underneath some pine straw in the back garden. I get a big plastic tub and a shovel, and simply picked him up by the shovel and put him in the tub. BTW, it's 80+*, so it ain't lethargic due to cold temperatures. I take it across the street, and the neighbor says it's a Snapping Turtle...very dangerous! The damn thing still hasn't moved. I dumped it in the woods, and threw some sticks at it, and finally, its head moves a bit.

Yeah, right...it chased the dogs around the yard...right.
 
During the summers I would catch snappers to sell to my neighbor. He would give me a buck a piece. I would ride my mini bike all over looking for ponds to catch them. I used roped and hook with a chicken gizzard on it. Never made a ton money but it kept me out of trouble.
 
Leave it to Steve to put flames and stripes on turtles :lol

I once worked with a guy that claimed to have caught the state record alligator snapping turtle while fishing on Kentucky Lake. He said he had to jump in the water to wrestle it into the boat. He was a lot like that guy in the video.
 
Wow they live among us and breed. :scar So what do you do with the turtles? :nta fd
 
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