Kinda tickles me that this thread started in June of last year and is still getting current discussion.
Our turtle problem got bigger than ever early this year. Possibly due to the TX drought for the past nine months. Most every pond within a few miles dried up during the July through March drought .... except for ours. We found turtles out in the middle of nowhere during the late summer, fall and early winter. I have a feeling they found out we still had water and told all their buddies about us.
During the same period, I had a small problem with snakes develop. We had been relatively snake free until November when a cotton mouth and a few copper heads showed up. At first I was using either a .357 loaded with rat shot, or a .22LR with rat shot. Then I just went to the 22LR hollow points which I found were great (shhhh) at reducing the turtle problem too.
When skunks, racoons and coyotes started making our ponds part of their daily routine (and I do mean daily as opposed to nocturnal) I started also carrying a 12 ga loaded with Lead 4s on the rifle rack in the ATV. It works very well on all of the critter problems we had.
Here's wife Carol with a Giant Canada in January next to a pond that
used to have a turtle and snake problem.
By the way, the pond was down about 42" from normal in that picture. Here's the same pond a few weeks ago after we finally got our 7" or rain that filled us to the brim and then some ...
