In order to participate in the GunBroker Member forums, you must be logged in with your GunBroker.com account. Click the sign-in button at the top right of the forums page to get connected.

Turtles

asopasop Member Posts: 8,898 ✭✭✭✭
Why do they have to stray so far from "the lake" to nest?  Pulled 4 off our road to date which is probably 250 yards from the lake??

Comments

  • varianvarian Member Posts: 2,250 ✭✭✭✭
    my daughter "the turtle whisperer"  say they can go as far as a mile away from the lake to lay their eggs.  she says for safety concerns, predators like snakes and the such.
  • BobJudyBobJudy Member Posts: 6,445 ✭✭✭✭
    We have the turtles from our pond lay their eggs in our yard every year. Most of the time I only discover them after a raccoon or skunk has dug them up. A couple of years ago Judy and I watched a snapper lay its eggs and I covered the spot with a wire cage. It was near the detached garage so we would check every day on the way by. It took almost 3 months but Judy finally saw one baby turtle in the cage. I went out and removed the cage and found almost 50 baby snappers in the grass and the first inch of so of the soil. Placed them all in the pond but the way mother nature is I am sure only a couple are still around. Bob
  • bustedkneebustedknee Member Posts: 2,002 ✭✭✭✭
    I was working on a shed yesterday, bent down to pickup my driver bit and found this little snapper in the grass. 
    I gave him a ride to the pond.
    A few months from now, after he eats my fish, I will be hunting him.

    I can't believe they misspelled "Pork and Beans!"
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 50,947 ✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2020
    Only the turtles know for sure.  I have seen female sliders over a mile from the nearest water.  Begs the question are they ooking for a nest site or moving from lake to lake.  I have taken them off Interstate Highways.  I have also picked up snapping turtles traveling from lake to lake in October, a half mile from either lake.  This was over in Wm81's neck of the woods.  There is much about the behavior and activities of wildlife we do not have knowledge of or understand.
  • nunnnunn Forums Admins, Member, Moderator Posts: 35,988 ******
    We always stop and remove turtles from the road.  Sometimes, looking at the direction it came from and the direction it's going, I have to wonder why is it so far from water.

    OTOH, I have observed a red ear slider, dug in and hunkered down, doing her business less than 50 yards from my pond.
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 50,947 ✭✭✭✭
    By the way, that is a juvenile box turtle, not a snapper. 
  • bustedkneebustedknee Member Posts: 2,002 ✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2020
    Why is he dressed like a snapper?

    You think he was adopted?
    I can't believe they misspelled "Pork and Beans!"
  • mohawk600mohawk600 Member Posts: 5,373 ✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2020
    Turtle on a fence post political joke......look it up.
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 50,947 ✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2020
    Why is he dressed like a snapper?

    You think he was adopted?
    Baby snappers look nothing like that.  They are dark, nearly black, the carapace is rugose and they have a long tail, almost as long as the shell.  They have feet adapted for swimming rather than walking.


  • Ditch-RunnerDitch-Runner Member Posts: 24,450 ✭✭✭✭
    not many turtles around us . but when traveling thru the mountains down south we have pulled over and carried many off the road ( I hope it was the side they wanted to go to ) I have often wondered why I have such a soft spot for the turtles ( not the band ) they just seem helpless I guess 
    wife and I had a box turtle when we first got married  found it on the road called it Roxanne ( have no idea if it was  male or female  )  after a year maybe two  we took it to  the woods by her dads house 

    also remember the painted turtles in the 5 and dime stores as a kid  . it was a  sad ending to countless turtles 
  • discusdaddiscusdad Member Posts: 11,418 ✭✭✭✭
    old time river rats would lock up the brakes in a heartbeat to pick up that snapper and throw it in the bed of the pick up.  take it home skin it out and turn it into a big pot of turtle mulligan.  fine eating i tell ya  mighty fine eating
  • bpostbpost Member Posts: 32,664 ✭✭✭✭
    I like seeing all the box turtles on my land.  I also see the senseless slaughter of many turtles by azzhat drivers that aim for the poor things as they cross the roads.  I don't get why people would crush these critters with a car thinking its funny.
    Yesterday I went out to feed the chickens and a nice painted box turtle was crossing the gravel part of my drive way.  I bid him a good day figuring he had places to go and people to see.  About an hour later I saw the same feller walking across my shooting range field abut 100 yards from where I first spotted him.  I had no idea a turtle could get that far that fast.  He must have had important business to attend to as he was determined to keep on truckin'.
  • select-fireselect-fire Member Posts: 69,453 ✭✭✭✭
    I thought this thread was about the chocolate ones that come in a box.
  • spasmcreeksrunspasmcreeksrun Member Posts: 1,755 ✭✭✭
    really...found a BIG round softshell heading across the road into my front yard >>>>miles from a creek....long way to go for a girlfriend......have followed big set of tracks  down a twp road for a mile and a half......big snapper heading ?????
  • chiefrchiefr Member Posts: 13,717 ✭✭✭✭
    We have both Alligator Macrochelys and Common chelydra snappers here.  Friend of mine had a turtle farm where they raised Macrochelys harvested the eggs and sold the babies until game and fish shut them down.
  • KenK/84BravoKenK/84Bravo Member Posts: 12,055 ✭✭✭✭

    I stopped to get a pretty good size box turtle out of the road about a week ago, and take it back to my property with a large pond on it. I pulled uff to the side of the road and got out. A neighbor was coming around the sharp bend in the other direction, and promptly ran it over. Right in front of me.

    Don't know if he just didn't see it, or just didn't care. Kept on rolling.

  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 50,947 ✭✭✭✭
    bpost said:
    I like seeing all the box turtles on my land.  I also see the senseless slaughter of many turtles by azzhat drivers that aim for the poor things as they cross the roads.  I don't get why people would crush these critters with a car thinking its funny.
    Yesterday I went out to feed the chickens and a nice painted box turtle was crossing the gravel part of my drive way.  I bid him a good day figuring he had places to go and people to see.  About an hour later I saw the same feller walking across my shooting range field abut 100 yards from where I first spotted him.  I had no idea a turtle could get that far that fast.  He must have had important business to attend to as he was determined to keep on truckin'.

    If it was really large, it was likely a female, which could explain why she was traveling.
  • bustedkneebustedknee Member Posts: 2,002 ✭✭✭✭
    The I guess I've never seen an adult box turtle...

    I can't believe they misspelled "Pork and Beans!"
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 50,947 ✭✭✭✭
    Not trying to dis you busted knee, but trying to educate you.  Babies do not have the hinge of adults.  I have hatched over 450 in the past 30 years. so I have seen a few.  I will bet my last dollar you have seen more than one box turtle.  The juveniles look more like the aquatic turtles they evolved from in Mexico, than the land turtles the adults are.  As an aside, a percentage of adults hibernate underwater.  They respire via their bucopharengil tissues  i.e., the back of the throat and nasal cavity.
  • nunnnunn Forums Admins, Member, Moderator Posts: 35,988 ******
    He Dog, if you have an abundance of baby box turtles, reckon you could send a couple to my sister?  She'd really like to have a couple of youngsters.  She lives in Ozona, Texas.
  • bustedkneebustedknee Member Posts: 2,002 ✭✭✭✭
    He Dog said:
    Not trying to dis you busted knee, but trying to educate you. ....
    I appreciate that.  I looked him up and he did not look like an adult snapper but he didn't look like a box turtle either.
    I think you are correct.

    I can't believe they misspelled "Pork and Beans!"
  • montanajoemontanajoe Forums Admins, Member, Moderator Posts: 57,893 ******
    Turtles are cool. Prefer the box turtle though.
  • OkieOkie Member Posts: 991 ✭✭✭
    I've seen some really huge snappers few years ago. Around 100 lbs.
    The big un's are old, like 100 years or so.
    I've stopped and removed them from the road. Have to watch out, I've had them hang onto my britches leg when carrying them by the tail. They have a long neck when they get mad and can reach out quite a distance. Some say they don't turn loose until it thunders. Very hard to pry their jaws open also.
    See a neighbors little 3 year boy crying one day walking around with a small snapper hanging onto one of his fingers.
  • He DogHe Dog Member Posts: 50,947 ✭✭✭✭
    Turtles are cool. Prefer the box turtle though.

    I have known and raised snappers from babies that were as tame as puppies.  One loved to be rubbed under the chin.

    Huh, this is reminding me of Nunn's water snake thread...
  • BrookwoodBrookwood Member, Moderator Posts: 13,280 ******
    Had a fairly good sized snapper come up for air right by where I was fishing on the river bank yesterday.  The old fellow looked older than his size by the algae he had on his shell!  I'd estimate he was about a 25 to 30 pounder.  Long neck fully extended to just break the waters surface with his nostrils for some air. If I had not been looking downward or just gazing across the river he would have been totally stealth. 
  • asopasop Member Posts: 8,898 ✭✭✭✭
    Snappers are really good eating if purged and properly prepared.  The kids used to make necklaces out of the maybe tail vertebrae?  Cleaned well and set the bones on a window sill to bleach out.  (Looked like miniature dinosaurs)  Many still have one around here somewhere.
  • chiefrchiefr Member Posts: 13,717 ✭✭✭✭
    asop said:
    Snappers are really good eating if purged and properly prepared.  The kids used to make necklaces out of the maybe tail vertebrae?  Cleaned well and set the bones on a window sill to bleach out.  (Looked like miniature dinosaurs)  Many still have one around here somewhere.
    Had a neighbor that used to cook not only snappers but large softshells and sliders.  Blanched them before cutting them up Made removing skin and shell easy. He was from Louisiana and cook just about anything. 
    He would set up trot-lines exclusively for turtles.  
  • OkieOkie Member Posts: 991 ✭✭✭
    I do not care for fried turtle, soft shell nor snapper either.
    Too many different tastes to the meat from the same part of a turtle, for example the muscle meat from a leg 's different muscles, one part can taste like frog leg and you will think man that good, take a bite from the same leg and tastes like pine needle or pine sap. The muscles meat really looks white like a bull frog leg. Adds new meaning to the term leaving a bad taste in your mouth.
    Suspect this is why the Cajuns make turtle stew, they can flood it with enough spices to make it all taste the same.

    Seen a guy that had some toes missing, big snapper got them when he was seining barefooted. He said he felt a burn like he had cut his foot on glass and when he came out of the river 3 of his toes were missing and blood flowing.
  • allen griggsallen griggs Member Posts: 35,183 ✭✭✭✭

    Daisy the Beagle was checking out this beast this morning at a park in the S. Carolina mountains.
  • allen griggsallen griggs Member Posts: 35,183 ✭✭✭✭
    I am no expert, but I am going to say, DO NOT kiss a snapping turtle:

    https://nypost.com/video/snapping-turtle-bites-guy-who-just-wanted-a-kiss/
  • bs233jlbs233jl Member Posts: 589 ✭✭✭
    I raised Box turtles for 10 years. They get to know you when it is time to eat. Most but not all will walk up to you for the goodies. I gave it up when an Osprey found them in the  yard.  The grand kids asked to see them when the came to visit.  I had two males that hated each other. I would separate them but they would search for each other.  They took turns in timeout. Fun times.
Sign In or Register to comment.