Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Turtles....

I'm not all about just the fish.....we have quite a few frogs and a few turtles as well. I like watching the turtles do their thing (except snapping turtles). My question is I would like to get some more but would hate to spend money on something that could get up and walk out at any time. Any suggestions on how to aquire some more? I have gotten a few at some local golf courses while playing a round with my ball retriever. I would love to get some smaller turltes and let them grow in the pond....

I made a turtle trap to get turtles out of my pond. It caught 200+turtles in 3 weeks. It can be made of many things but mine was made of some wire pannel scraps I had laying around from making livestock gates. It was basically a trapazoid with a hole open in the top. The turtles climb up the gradual slope then once at the top fall into the hole. Once in they cant get out. It caught more turtles than I could get rid of.

If you knew of a pond that you could trap them on, I would highly sugest it.

jakeb - how big was the trap you made? Do you have dimensions or a photo? Did you bait the trap? If so with what?

Watch out for those snappers!

Once while swimmin' 'cross Turtle Creek
Man them snappers right at my feet
Sure was hard swimmin' 'cross that thing
With both hands holding my ding-a-ling

Chuck Berry

Bill this is what I based mine off of.


Mine was much smaller and more rectangular, did not have the PVC pipe for the potential to float. This one has a bait spot, but I only baited mine with 1 turtle. I was told that because this trap is used when turtles are looking for a place to sun, that another turtle was the best possible bait, because he must be in a good area to sun. Then when I removed the turtles I just left one in the trap. The one in the picture can be purchased for $299 plus S/h, however I made one from scraps for free. Size does not really matter as long as they can get up the ramp and fall into the pit. The one I built could hold about 15 turtles before they were stacked so high they could escape.

When I placed mine half in the water I caught soft shell turtles, but never snappers. Hope this helps.

Hey Jake any pictures of your trap? Trying to picture the grade up to the opening. Sounds like to me by looking through some of the past links some people have way too many turtles or none. I would love to get some softshells, mostly have a couple of box turtles from what I have seen on a log I have near the shore. Any other suggestions as far as shelter or other improvements for their habitat?

I wont be able to post pics of the trap I built for about two weeks, but the softer the grade the more success I think you would have. As far as structure, they seem to get on floating logs/libs that have fell from trees.

I built a trap like jakeb based his off of. Real easy to build and not too expensive. And most importantly....it works. I can't find the link where I found the instructions but search around and you will find them.

The easiest way I can say to make one is your wire of choice, such as hardware cloth, chicken wire, hog panels, or whatever you have. Lay the wire out at say 8X2ft (the longer the piece the more gradual slope you will have). then fold the two ends back to the middle until you have about a 30 degree slope on both ends. (be sure the ends do not touch becuase you need to have a hole in the top big enough turtles will fall in) Then simply put flat pannel sides on it. This will only give you two "ramps" not four, but seemed to work fine for me with just two.

If you have wire and wire cutters and some zip ties laying around it can be made in ten mins tops. A total of three pieces of wire is all thats needed.

If you want to get fancy, attach a couple floats and some "trap doors" so when its floating in the water the turtles will get up on it to sun and fall right in.

Thanks for the help!

See this link pg 25.

http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p1428.pdf

Yes ewest that is what I mean by the trap door system. Thanks for the help.

Hey jake if you get some more softshells out of your pond just put a stamp on them and shoot them up to Ohio....ha ha...

To colonise a pond with the more interesting smaller turtle varieties, larger snapping turtles will be something of a handicap as they have no problem chomping the limbs off small turtles for tidbits.

For large snapping turtles a submersed trap with bait would be effective as they don't bask, a basking trap is unlikely to catch them

Regards, andy
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