(08-31-2023, 02:07 PM)Schmoe Wrote: Waiting to snipe a turtle surfacing for air sounds like a better version of whack-a-mole
Those snappers are nasty. I drove by a shitty little pond once and tucked that information away for later. Those little ponds sometimes have the biggest bass, so I went back, caught nothing for awhile, and thought I hit a snag as I was reeling my line in to switch up my bait.
I was about to cut the line and my losses because I was hooked on something heavy, but it was coming in, SLOWLY. I finally got it to the edge of the pond, and up rears it's ugly head and gaping beak. Big ass snapping turtle. I rolled my eyes and cut the line anyway, I've seen those bastards snap their heads out practically behind their bodies. No thanks.
I'm with you on those people noodling. You couldn't pay me to stick my hand in some submerged hole. Thankfully I don't have cottonmouths up here, but nor do I feel like getting a good chunk of hand bitten off by a snapper, or even barbed by a catfish. That happened to me once, too. I was younger and fishing, reeled in my water-filled-boot-feeling catfish, and got barbed in the palm of my hand. That was an interesting pain. Deep, throbbing, and long-lasting.
Those alligator gar look like dinosaurs, and probably are. They look like a good time, removing the hook. They're like our version of Africa's tigerfish, which are also nasty, and apparently will go after you.
You're right, there's plenty of shit in freshwater that will ruin your day. I'm north, so I don't have to worry about water moccasins, alligators, crocodiles, or gar. You get the occasional bull shark out of the Delaware River, not that I've caught any, but undoubtedly it was a bull responsible for the New Jersey shark attacks in a goddamned creek that killed a few people and inspired the movie Jaws.
All those other animals with ruin your day, but those bull sharks will remove a leg in one second.
Gars are interesting. There are two sorts here, the alligator gars and the needle nosed gars. Both are hard as hell to clean - their scales do not overlap, they are diamond-shaped and butt edge to edge, so you can't just scale them, and the knife slips right over the scales and doesn't do any damage. they are more or less armored. The only luck I've had cleaning them involves peeling the entire skin off with a pair of pliers. A big one will have scales big enough to use as arrow heads.
When you encounter a turtle noodling, it's an interesting sensation. You have to keep your hand flat and scoot it along the bottom, and that way they can't get a finger because the lower jaw can't get under it, but when you find one, it feels like a chicken pecking at the palm of your hand. Best thing to do is snatch your hand right back out when that happens, lickey-quick, before they figure out how to get a good bite on you.
Sniping turtles in a water hole isn't as boring as it sounds. They can only hold a breath for maybe a half hour or 45 minutes, so if you watch close, you'll see that nose break surface to catch a breath. You just look for circular ripples with a sharp nose in the middle of them, and aim just below that nose poking out. Once, I shot one in the mouth, broke it's lower jaw, but I couldn't find an exit wound where the bullet came out. After I cleaned it, I still never found the bullet, and have no idea what happened to it. I had one try to climb a rock to get at the biggest catfish I ever caught, which I had placed in the creek to keep fresh until I was ready to clean it. That kinda pissed me off, so I ate the snapper, too. That was on my 15th birthday. I recall it because we'd been camping on the river, and I caught the biggest catfish I'd ever caught out of that river, and I thought that was a great birthday present.
I used a .22 to snipe snappers, rather than a larger caliber. That way, the bullet didn't scramble their innards or blow the shell up and ruin the meat, and a .22 is all you need to drop one to the bottom so you can claw it back out with a long-handled hoe or rake.
The biggest one I ever saw must have been 5 feet across it's shell - it filled the bed of a pickup truck with just a little wiggle room. I'd say it weighed close to 300 pounds, and was caught in Ohio. It's head was almost as big as a watermelon.
That's not one I'd like to run into swimming, and now I know they ARE out there!
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