Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Ever find one of these?

in your pond?

Yes.

Absolutely. Or are you talking about the snapping turtle? In that case, disregard my first comment and just assume I've never had a dismembered arm show up on my pond.

Yes.

I've even found one in my Port-A-John before.

Todd, you were there.

So are we to assume that you've had a dismembered arm show up at your office??

I have a young one just about that size. He loves the floating catfish food. Been wondering if I should try to trap him or just let him be. Have two or three Red Ear sliders also.

You know Todd is from West Virginia, right?

snrub, I think general consensus is that they don't really harm the healthy fish in your pond, but may go to town on sick or dying fish.

They can be a nuisance eating feed, or when fishing or swimming, but I just leave 'em all in there.

Todd's had so many body parts show up at his office that he's actually pieced them together into a servicable property manager.

Once a year. Had two of them last year. I can't say what I did with them on grounds that it may incriminate me.

Multiple times a year. They will walk from pond to pond.

Only once, it was a short stay

I have several. I've even brought a couple in I've found along the roads. No guarantee they stayed, but I gave em' the option.

That was the time a client said he would give "an arm & a leg" to beat that rap and Todd asked for a down-payment...

Yes. I caught one on a watermelon Senko. Thought I had snagged a log but it was one of these ugly sonuvaguns. When my brother rudely declined to retrieve my lure from the beast's mouth, I cut the line.

I'm hoping to find out this spring if my invention works as well on turtles as it does on CC. Grandson with 22 works good. I have seen old timers use a plank from bank to wash tub in water. You put fishfeed on end over wash tub and when turtle walks out on end it drops him in wash tub. Somewhere on internet even seen guy who has invented turtle trap but can't find it now. somewhere I read where a med size turtle can read as much as 80lb catfish!?!

We have them everywhere. The only thing I dont like about them is the big snappers will eat baby ducks and geese in your pond.

They are easily trapped. And they are delicious.

Just watch the other side of the pond. A 22LR can skip when shooting at the water.

Cheers Don.

I've got a couple...used to be fairly aggressive about getting them out. Less so in the last few years. Based on what I've read they aren't much of a hazard to healthy fish. They certainly do a nice job keeping the ponds clean of carcasses though.

During the spring migration you'll see them crossing the roads out in the country...picked one up last spring with a shell about as big around as my arms would go. Moved her (likely a 'her' but not positive) across the direction she was going after showing the kids. Gotta love nature.

I have told this story before.....

I "caught" one on a spinnerbait one day. The snapper wasn't hooked but had clamped down on the spinnerbait and was not about to let go. Once I got it out of the water it decided to release it's catch and get the heck away from me.

Their mother's can't even look at em because of the ugly. They are free to use the pond as long as they don't latch onto my foot and try to drag me away.

That is kind of what I figured. My main concern was that they might do some damage to spawning beds in the spring. Some people that fish around here wage war on all kinds of turtles in their pond but I kind of like to see them unless the numbers get out of hand. Watched a little silver dollar sized Redear Slider grow up some this summer. I would imagine when my LMB get some size the next batch of turtles that size might have a more hazardous life.

I let em' stay as long as they wish in our ponds. That way, if I need one to eat, they're readily available. I'm not aware of any damage they cause.

I would rather have a snapper than a painted eating my lilies and day. Saw a very pale-colored snapper in my pond this past spring swimming around just after the ice opened. Not much for it to eat though, and didn't see it again.

Since we built our pond I've been amazed at what is attracted to it. It's like a science class experiment. Build a pond and see what happens! We've only had a few at a time as far as I can tell, but as long as they don't get too prolific, I'm happy to let 'em stay. Kinda fun to watch them "swimming" around eating the floating pellets with the fish, too.

Caught one on a Stubby Steves this past summer. Not intensional, but he was feeding with the rest of the fish and I threw it out there. It was about the size of the one pictured above - not huge, and not too hard to coax in even with a 3-wt. fly rod, but when the water got shallow enough that he could get traction, it was a different matter! Trying to hold the rod in one hand and keeping the tension on him while reaching for his tail with the other hand wasn't exactly easy, but fortunatly the hook popped out and nobody got hurt

Good times, good times...

When I was a kid we had monster that would find its way into our pool every year at about the same time.It was always fun trying to fish it out of the pool This went on for years and then one year it never returned.

I don't know how true this is but my dad told us it was a female going to lay her eggs.Supposedly they use the same route every year.Since she showed up the first year we had the pool and dropped in every year for 10-15 years after.We just assumed the pool was built in her way and I never questioned it.Though I still wonder about it to this day.