Turtles Kill and take down full grown duck in my pond this morning.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Only had two run-ins with snappers, ain't much an outdoorsman. About age 12 me and friends were goofing along a local canal Collinsville IL and found about a 12" snapper. It seemed like a good idea at the time to take him to school for science class. Buddies got his attention taunting him snapping at a stick and I snuck up behind and picked him up with a hand on each side of his shell, mid-way between front and back legs. So then he started thrashing around so violently it was hard to keep from dropping him. And somewhat puzzling on the safest way to even let him go. His back legs were long enough to reach my hands and scratch em with those long claws, and his front legs were long enough to reach my hands and scratch em, and if his long neck had been a fraction of an inch longer he would have been biting my hands. He was reaching back and almost getting ahold of my hands, snapping at em. So toted him over and dumped him in a big rusty bucket that was laying among other trash on the canal bank. We took him home but folks made us carry him back to the canal and let him go.

Then there was the aforementioned time I tried to be a good samaritan and chase about a two-footer off the road so he wouldn't get run over, and he ended up chasing me instead. They don't seem to be anything to be trifled with. Bad-attitude reptiles.

But that documentary of the 1950's cajun turtle hunter-- He was catching snappers about three foot diameter as best could tell. He would paddle around in that skinny piro boat looking for bubbles, then stand up in the piro and dig em up off the bottom with a long-handled garden hoe. I probably couldn't ever learn to stand up in a piro, much less manage to stand up while also digging a giant turtle out of the muck with a garden hoe. But anyway, the three-footers were not aggressive acting, unless the cajun guy was just unusually charming and the turtles liked the feller. They acted sluggish, confused, half-asleep. No wild thrashing and snapping like my two experiences. He would drag em up beside the piro then "skillfully" tie up the mouth, then hog-tie em, IIRC think both rear feet tied and both front feet tied. Then stash the turtle in the back end of the piro. That day it looked like he caught several. Maybe six..

So maybe they get sluggish by the time they get to be three footers? Or maybe they get sluggish in real warm water like louisiana swamps? Of maybe those snappers just liked the dude. Dunno. Some people seem to handle big snakes better than others, so maybe it goes the same for snappers?