water turtles

[Bird]

I was told some time ago that larger red eared turtles were mainly veggy eaters, while the snapping turtles were the eat everything else type. I will try to get rid of the snapping turtles when ever I see one, but leave the red eated ones alone.

Now I may be mistaken, but I think you were told wrong. I think they are omnivorous as this article says.

 

[MossRoad]

I used to fish for painted, red eared, musk, snappers and soft-shell turtles with bologna when I was a kid. Bologna is meat... not exactly sure what kind of meat, but meat nonetheless. :laughing:

 

[Bird]

I used to fish for painted, red eared, musk, snappers and soft-shell turtles with bologna when I was a kid. Bologna is meat... not exactly sure what kind of meat, but meat nonetheless. :laughing:

I had some little red eared turtles in an aquarium for awhile when I was a kid and the "turtle food" we bought was dried flies.

We did a lot of fishing for catfish when I was a kid, using beef liver for bait. Back then I never saw but two kinds of turtles in the wild; the snapping turtle and the soft shelled turtle (a light brown leathery shell) and both would get hooked on the liver. I'd only heard of turtle soup, had never seen any, and I'd heard that the soft shelled turtles were good eating, but not the snapping turtles. So one day I caught two saucer sized soft shelled turtles and decided to try turtle soup. Mother wouldn't have anything to do with it, but allowed me to make a turtle vegetable soup and it was pretty good. Later, I caught a much bigger one (8 lbs. if I remember right), so I made soup again. That time the soup was OK except the meat was so tough only a dog could eat it.:laughing: And in later life, I learned that people also eat the snapping turtles.

 

[20 20]

I encourage turtles{except snappers} to come to my ponds. If I see one on the side of the road it becomes a new member. I have had one pond{total of 4 ponds} for over 14yrs now and never once had a problem with fish being killed off. I don't care for snappers being in our ponds so they get relocated. I'd be more worried about cranes{blue heron} or other critters.

Bird; I worked with a guy that would go nutz over snapper. It was not uncommon for him to have a couple live ones in the back of his PU during the week. He'd catch them along the road in the morning on the way to work.

 

[Taylortractornut]

I made some barrel traps a few years ago for the pond at work. We had a tome of turtle that ran the fish off from their feed. We caught several, after Katrina a friend got hooked up with the state buying turtles to recoup the the populations. I got a permit and sold a ton to him lol. Then we cought several and took them several miles away to a river and dumped them.

 

[RTII]

I usually walk the dogs through our area letting them run through the woods off leash to exercise them. Our older dog is always (3-4 times a week) bringing back turtles as a trophy. Doesn't hurt 'em. Just brings 'em over to show them. Most of the time these turtles are in the woods and not near water although we have several good size ponds in the area. It's the only hunting I've ever seen her do. No interest in birds, squirrels, coons, deer, hogs. Her preference is usually to just hang out on the porch but I guess retrieving a turtle doesn't take much effort.