NEWS JOURNAL (Mansfield, Ohio) 14 September 08 Snapping turtles fattened up, ready for the taking (Dick Martin)

It's been a long summer and area snapping turtles have spent it feasting on frogs, fish, crayfish, baby ducks and other edibles to reach their full size and weight for the year.

That makes now a good time to seek some. One of the most exciting, testosterone-filled ways to catch a half dozen or so is grabbing.

Being short on courage in this respect, I've never done it and never will, but I did go along with a friend once and carried the burlap bag while he waded a shallow drainage ditch and felt inside muskrat holes and on the shelves of undercut banks looking for snappers.

The basic idea of grabbing -- whether you do it in a drainage ditch, small stream, river, pond or lake -- is simple. Snappers are nocturnal hunters who spend their night probing the shorelines. When daylight comes, they'll head for a favorite hole and wait it out. Almost invariably they'll crawl in that hole head first, so the tactic is to feel around very gently until your fingers touch a hard shell.

All who seek these prehistoric reptiles know that the shell above their head is smooth and rounded while at the opposite end there's a substantial notch just above the tail. So, you probe with delicate fingers for that notch, then reach below, grab the tail and pull the hissing, fighting critter out and dump him in the burlap bag. On this trip, we found four snappers, enough for soup and fried turtle, too.

My partner also laid his hands on a water snake that had to be nearly four feet long slithered out and went on his way.

"That's not as bad as the time I pulled out of a hole with a full grown muskrat hanging on my thumb," he said. "That hurt."

If you feel the same as I do about grabbing for snappers, but would still like some tasty meat, there are other ways to catch them.

There's probably not an old farm pond in the county that doesn't have at least a few. Those with a population of muskrats for bank holes, cattails and a weed bed or two are ideal. Such places draw turtles like a magnet.

You'll need a dozen or so gallon plastic jugs, about four feet of heavy trotline and a thick, sturdy hook at least an inch long. Bait can be anything.

I've used silver dollar-sized pieces of tough groundhog meat, beef neck meat or, more recently, caught some small bluegills, cut them in half and baited hooks with these. Some turtle hunters like to just toss the baited rigs out here and there, but the wind usually blows them all to one side of a pond.

Instead, I place the plastic jugs on dry land and the bait on rocks barely submerged or in just a few inches of water. When a foraging turtle comes along he'll swallow the bait and go on his way, towing the jug behind. When he holes up for the day, the jug is right there and highly visible. Just lift the snapper free and stow him in a bag. In lakes, you'll have to follow some regulations on identifying your jugs, but the information is readily available in your fishing regulations.

Stream fishing is even simpler, and I've caught some dandy turtles in even shallow little creeks. There will always be pools here and there with overhanging willows or tree limbs. Just tie the line to a sturdy limb and arrange the bait so it's just below the surface or even half submerged.

I remember one trip when I caught four nice ones in less than a 100-yard stretch.

No doubt the local frogs and minnows thanked me for that.
Snapping turtles fattened up, ready for the taking

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