Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation Snapping turtle?

Any of you guys know what to do with these things, a buddy of mine has a HUGE snapper in it that's tearing up the fish.

Hire TurtleMan!!!

Catch it. Put it in a tub of clean water for a week or two before killing. Then butcher it and make mulligan soup.

Wouldn't know how to butcher one or make soup out of it.... Not sure if I'd want to anyway

here in Florida, we live in a 'turtle rich environment'. No need to resort to eating snapping turtles when there are all those sliders and cooters around.

Once upon a time in my younger days, we set some gill nets out for a fish fry. We caught some large soft shell turtles along with buffalo and carp, so being about 4/3 drunk, we butchered some of the turtles and fried some chunks along with buffalo fish. It tasted good but was so tough you could never get a piece worked up enough to swallow. I am thinking pressure cooker. miles

How do you clean a turtle?

Raze his tail and wipe his azz.

Yep soup, not too bad to clean. Just be careful when you cut the head off and don't let any one near the head.

Here's a fantastic soup recipe:

http://honest-food.net/2014/01/21/turtle-soup-recipe-creole/

The putting it in the tub to clean out for a couple of weeks is dead on the money.

A bit more on them:

http://simplegoodandtasty.com/2013/09/29/hunting-for-dinner-snapping-turtles-and-general-tsos-turtle

They don't die easy. That I know for a fact. My father still kills and cooks them, as did his parents (and their parents) before him. He has an old bathtub out back just for holding turtles for a couple of weeks while they get flushed out clean. To kill them, get them to bit a stick (not hard to do), hold them up by that stick and with a VERY sharp large knife, machete, or hatchet, sever the head from the neck in one swipe. Turn the turtle upside down, tie the hind legs, and hang like that so it can drain out for at least an hour.

I had turtle soup when I was a kid. It was good. It was a creamy soup with chunks of cubed turtle meat about 3/8" square.

Very tasty stuff. I would eat it again but I wouldn't kill a 100 year old animal just to make soup out of it.

A guy I used to work with told me that they got a snapper to bite a coat hanger, pulled the head out as far as it would go and chopped it off. He said they hung the hanger with the turtle head still attached on a branch and when they walked by it a few days later the eyes would follow them. Not sure if that's even possible but he swore it was true.

No this is kill a 100 year old animal because it's eating the little 5 acre pond out of house and home. This thing head is bigger than my fist !

Kind of scary thinking about screwing with the critter when you hear / see it take out a full grown goose.

So, you need to catch it as well?

Get an empty bleach bottle with a handle and screw on lid. Tie about two feet of strong line (I like mason's line) to that handle and tie it on well. Use a steel leader at the other end of the line, and a good, stout 1/0 hook. Bait it with a chicken liver or chicken neck, and toss it into the pond. Check it every day or so, but you'll probably see it moving around after the turtle is hooked. Drag it out, put it in a tank to flush it for a couple of weeks, and clip the hook/leader after it's in the tank.

Be careful. They are incredibly powerful animals, the claws are sharp, they can take a finger (or more) off with those jaws, and they come out of the egg with a fearless, pissed off attitude.

I really like the damned old things, and save/move them when I can. Every now and then, though, one just has to go.

No doubt but it would be nice if it could somehow be moved.
Shame to kill an old survivor like that if you don't have to.

I've moved many of them for just that reason.

The question, often, is where do you move them to? You have to move them a damned good distance, too, or they'll come right back.

My dilemma would be how to safely catch the dang thing.
I've only seen one in my life so I wouldn't have a clue.

I'd likely go with Mike's recommendation to call the Turtle Man.

Safely catching one is a trick. A very large box trap (metal wire mesh) works quite well.

I've even been in on roping one (lasso). THAT was a helluva ride in a 12' jon boat and pulling it out took quite a bit. I'd not do that one again, though.

I've seen the after effects of a cow sniffing too close to one.

The cow's nose was bleeding like she had been cut with a knife.

Be careful in handling this critter.

35 years ago a Friend of mine worked in a Wildlife Forensic Lab. He did some testing on a turtle. With the pollutants found, you wouldn't be eating turtle.

That would be rather dependent upon the body of water the turtle came from more than anything else.

Just grab them by the tail.