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NEWS JOURNAL (Wilmington, Delaware) 07 May 06 This hunter provides turtles for your soup (Betsy Price)
A good day for Victor Bryson is a hot day. The hotter the better.
Because that's when the snapping turtles come up from the bottom of the Christina River, head for the shallow water of marshes and bury themselves under a thin layer of mud to cool off.
Then proggers like Bryson step carefully through the marshes, carrying a long thin metal stick with a spike on one end and a hook on the other. He gently pokes the pointed tip into the mush and when he hits a turtle, he flips the prog and uses the hook to bring the turtle to the surface.
Bryson, 48, of Old New Castle, has been doing this for 35 years. He's been doing it since becoming entranced by the river when he was 13 and an uncle introduced him and his brothers to its joys and mysteries.
"It was full of snapping turtles, muskrat, fish. It was like something we'd never seen, and it was something we never grew out of."
He catches snapping turtles in the summer, traps muskrats in the winter, recycles scrap metal and works occasionally as a form carpenter.
"I make a living at it, but my lifestyle isn't very expensive," Bryson says. "The house we live in, we don't owe a lot of money on. I'm always busy. I'm always doing something to make money."
He eats the meat of the muskrat -- his favorite recipe is plain old fried muskrat -- and sells the fur to a dealer in New Jersey.
He starts his turtle season by finding 88 pounds of turtle meat for the Fort Penn Historical Society's annual dinner at the fire hall.
After that, he catches turtles and saves the meat until he has enough to take to market in Maryland, usually about 300 to 400 pounds. There, he sells it to a company that supplies a lot of the turtle meat to the rest of the country and now even exports some overseas.
He'll catch about 6,000 pounds of turtle meat a year, and says he doesn't have to worry about reducing the snapping turtle population.
"The state kind of regulates the turtle season, so it's closed while turtles are laying their eggs," he says. "I personally very seldom keep a female snapper, and I never keep a turtle under 10 to 12 pounds."
The average turtle in these parts is about 14 to 15 pounds, about the width of a hefty pie plate, he says.
Bryson has no intention of retiring.
"I hope you see me walking in a ditch catching snapping turtles when I'm 90 years old."
This hunter provides turtles for your soup

http://www.midstateliving.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060503/MIDSTATE05/605030329/1158/MIDSTATE

Katrina

Marshland Dinner is a taste of history
A Port Penn tradition for decades

By KATHY ANSELL

05/03/2006
Turtle picking is kind of like a quilting bee, only messier. Chatting, joking and wielding kitchen shears with latex-sheathed hands, a baker's dozen volunteers made short work of the 10 boiled snapping turtles destined to become soup for the Port Penn Marshland Dinner on May 13.

It's an annual ritual at the Port Penn firehouse: Separate the turtle meat from shell, bone, fat and inedible bits, then snip it into about 90 pounds of half-inch pieces.

"For every pound, we get about a cup," said Linda Beck, executive director of the Port Penn Historical Society, which hosts the fundraiser. She'd cooked the turtles for three to four hours, then they had to be picked while still warm.

The mild, chewy meat will yield 44 gallons of rich snapper soup, with or without a shot of sherry. It's always made according to a secret recipe from Beck's late husband Bob.

The soup has been a staple at the dinner, along with baked local shad and ham, since its debut more than 30 years ago. (Muskrat, however, has dropped out of favor.) Side dishes are stewed tomatoes, green beans, macaroni and cheese, muffins and desserts.

The dinner celebrates local resources, from the turtles captured near New Castle to the wildflowers that decorate the tables.

In Port Penn, life was defined by the nearby river and marshes. That heritage is prized and protected in the unincorporated village, population about 600.

Its numbers swell by several hundred on the night each year the Marshland Dinner brings together locals, those who've moved away, those who enjoy a sense of history and those who want a true Delaware experience.