RECORD HERALD (Waynesboro, Pennsylvania) 30 October 07 Snapping turtles a perfect meal for outdoorsman (Tyler Miller)
Photo at URL below : Rouzerville resident David Bare has a passion for catching and eating snapping turtles.
Rouzerville: Snyder Avenue resident David “Dink” Bare has been catching snapping turtles for nearly 60 years.
And he has been eating them for just as long.
Bare, a lifelong Waynesboro area resident, began capturing turtles on fishing trips when he was a young man. And though his wife Doris declares they're ugly, he has continued with his hobby to this day.
“It keeps me busy - it keeps me healthy,” said the 85-year-old former Washington Township Transfer Station volunteer. “It's just something to do.”
Bare is an avid outdoorsman who hunts, fishes and raises frogs, crayfish, tadpoles and rabbits; but harvesting the green-shelled reptiles is by far his most unusual pastime.
Bare has traveled to Boiling Springs, Carlisle, Halifax and New Cumberland to catch turtles but also finds them here in Franklin County in ponds and streams, grassy areas and especially mud banks.
Thirty minutes is about what it takes him to snag a single turtle.
“I look at the surroundings, and right away I know,” he explained. “I know the signs they have.”
The best time of year to catch the cantankerous aquatic animals is right about now, when they're preparing to hibernate until springtime and have burrowed into the mud.
Since the turtles haven't actually started hibernating and are still coming to the surface to breathe, impressions are visible in the mud and make locating them easier, Bare said.
Snapping turtles have no teeth, but they pack quite a bite - the hissing creatures will easily chomp off a careless person's finger. Bare's own nature guide book states, “Their long necks, powerful jaws and vicious tempers make them unsafe to handle.”
Bare has never been seriously injured, although the prehistoric-looking animals have “drawn blood” a few times, he said.
A 35-pound snapper is the largest he's ever caught. He no longer goes after box turtles or a handful of other kinds, as they're protected by state law.
After catching a turtle, Bare partially submerges it in a barrel of water for 10 days to flush its waste.
When butchering time arrives, he keeps his fingers at a safe distance by holding the turtle's head with long pliers and cutting off the head with a knife.
The body will move for “hours and hours” after the decapitation, he said. Then he cuts around the shell to retrieve the turtle meat and trim the fat.
Snapping turtle meat “is safe to eat without restrictions,” according to the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission's Web site.
Bare said the most common way to prepare a turtle is to fry it in vegetable oil. Five- to six-pound turtles are best for this, while larger turtles - those more than 10 pounds - often need to be boiled first to make them tender.
To the unsuspecting palate, snappers may have a “little bit of a wild taste, but almost like chicken,” said Bare, who also compared the flavor to two other Franklin County delicacies: rabbit and squirrel.
Turtle meat is popular in turtle soup - a variation of vegetable soup that substitutes turtle for beef.
A 10-pound snapper will yield about five pounds of meat. The shells can be saved as trophies, and the inch-long claws can be made into necklaces or other trinkets.
In his younger days, Bare owned a service station next to The Hut in Rouzerville. There, customers would purchase turtles he kept in a pond behind the station.
But he said he's no longer a turtle vendor, since sale or bartering of the omnivorous freshwater dwellers requires a $10 permit from the Fish and Boat Commission. As a result, he only catches turtles now as a favor to others.
According to commission regulations, snapping turtle season runs from July 1 to Oct. 31. The commission caps daily limits and possession limits at 15 turtles.
Bare has noticed overall interest in turtle meat is waning, and because of the slowing demand, he has only caught 10 snapping turtles this year, compared to one year when he netted 104.
“It sort of disappeared. This (year) is probably the last time I'm going to catch turtles,” he said. “Maybe I'm not going to fool with them as much anymore.”
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