Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat logs for turtles

i love this site since i have found it, great info. what type of logs would be the best to stay afloat for longest time, i have two big rock and concreete slab piles in my acre pond, i'd like to mark them and give turtles some where to sun .

Any wood will water log and sink over time. Best to place logs with branches attached so that they stick up out of the water, while resting on the bottom, if you want to provide turtles a place to sun.

You can make a turtle island, if you wish. Find a couple wooden pallets, use wood from one to fill the top slots of the other. Then, fill the gap between the bottom slots and top slots with styrofoam, or other floating material. Anchor in water with nylon rope and a concrete block. Be sure the "island" doesn't sit more than two inches above the water, or turtles can't climb aboard. If your device floats too high, build little turtle ramps on two sides, so the little critters can climb up.

thanks for the idea Bob , finding old pallets and foam will be easy , also give fish some shade. great idea thank you

Plain ole square hay bales work just fine for getting the turtles in the sun.When the bales get water soaked they only float about 1-2 inches out of the water..(least the coastal does) I've had abaout 7 bales in mine for close to a year now and they are still there...

Aren't turtles considered "undesirables" in a bass pond?

i went with Bob's idea , the painted turtles love it, i found about 10 turtle nest around the pond, been keeping on on them , will be pretty neat to see the young ones come out. works great for keeping eye out for big snappers, one hung on the edge, 22 took care of him.i like the painted turtles in the pond , they eat fish food too,i don't think they do any harm.

I have always thought turtles were ok. Now I don't. I caught 3 catfish that would go about 3 pounds out of my pond. Put them on a stringer and went to the house. When I got back about 20 minutes later, 2 were pretty well eaten. I know it is just nature but I'm shooting turtles.

Dave, I am sure you realize that the consumption of the catfish had a little to do with the fact that you had them tied up very close to shore. I highly doubt a snapper or any other turtle would be able to hunt down any, or at least extremely few, catfish when not tied on a stringer. Of course, its your pond, but I personally would be willing to sacrifice any infitesimal dent in my fish population to support such a fascinating animal.

Jimbo, I understand your feeling. I don't even kill rattlesnakes unless they are around the house or the pond. I don't allow anyone to kill anything on my land that they aren't going to eat unless the target poses a real problem. No sport deer hunting unless they eat venison.

I've never been upset at the turtles until now. However, I have hit the point where I can't have a stringer in the water without staying close and watching it. Thus, I have to fish in one spot. Now, the turtles have become a problem. So far, I'm limiting my shooting to larger turtles and realize that I will be lucky to get the big one that could have really done the damage.

Get a grip folks. Turtles will eat your stringer fish, go after your bait , and generally cause problems. Put in a 2X4 with hooks turned up so that they crawl up on the board and get hooked up. Finish them off with a 22 or whatever. Other than that I use a floating cage with a top that let's them fall in, and then finish them off. We who want the fish do not want the turtles and they are kinda like Coyotes who are expendable. Might as well go ahead and add the cormorants in with the same post. Waste them.

I see what you mean Dave. What do you think you have in your pond, just common snappers? Ever encounter any of those monster Alligator Snappers? Now those could definately clean out some fish!

Jimbo, I expect a big slider or painter has moved in. I haven't seen a real snapper around here in years. Now that this has happened, I recall having a catfish on a stringer that I lost. I had pushed the point of the stringer down into the mud and assumed the fish had pulled it out and got away only to die. Never lost one before and it puzzled me but then, I had never had a large enough turtle to pull it out either. I'm only assuming about the size since I haven't seen any real big ones and still haven't.

I wouldn't blame painted for attacking fish on a stringer. Sounds like a snapper to me, I had the same thing happen to a walleye in the Bwcaw. When ever we camp we put the stringer on about 10 feet of rope, that gives the fish plenty of roome to avoide the snappers. And remeber just because you don't seem them doesn't mean they aren't there. They breath by stiking just their nostrils out of the water. We watched for them with binaculars less than 50 yards away. Ive never heard of a painted turtle big enough to kill a catfish.

Dave,
I have a painted turtle shell in my basement right now that measures 13 1/2" long & 11" wide along the bottom. It's the biggest I've ever had in my hands but after finding him I figure some of the large turtles I've seen slipping off of rocks that we always figured for snappers were prob. paint's.
I don't agree with those that say turtles won't hurt your fishery. They are preditors as well as scavangers. I've watched them catch minnows & tadpoles. I guess it goes back to one's goals. For my small pond I want all avaliable forage for my fish.
Ric

damn heron eats much more fish than painted turtle with 6 " shell , most painted turtles here are small guy's . think they add a lot of visual enjoyment to the overall picture of the pond.

damn heron eats much more fish than painted turtle with 6 " shell , most painted turtles here are small guy's . think they add a lot of visual enjoyment to the overall picture of the pond.

I think we do a disservice to this subject when we just talk about "turtles". There are so many different species of turtles with so many different forage habits.

I've stocked our lake with painted turtles. People love to watch them and in our area they seldom get over 8" long. If a turtle becomes a problem by eating bait while we are fishing, I move it to a small lake we have about a half a mile away.

Snapping turtles are always removed and destroyed.

We still have a need for a bottom scavenger. I bought 6 immature spiny shoftshell females. Shoftshell turtles tend to not travel overland in our area as snapping turtles do. Therefore, I don't expect them to reproduce and I can control their numbers.

Turtles are not much of a threat to healthy fish... They plod along real gentle and slow, looking for something to peck at, usually some foliage, a bit of plant roots, a good day for a turtle is to find a freshly dead or crippled fish or frog to finish off

Many a time I would go take some spare scraps of chicken to a local pond, to see turtles amble up within minutes of getting scent of a good tidbit.

Nine times out of ten fish would dart in and take the tid bit, leaving the turtle quite pathetic, probably thinking, one day, the fish will be on the menu when the fish has reached the end of its natural life...

It takes less than 30 minutes for the sneakiest healthy snapping turtle to find any morsel like a bit of chicken in a turtle trap. You would never know he was there except for the size of the bite marks left on the plants... they do not bask...

Your average turtle has rather inadequate mobility underwater, their mouths have a fairly limited gape, so 'at best' they can only forage on stuff that cannot run or swim away... they are easily outmaneuvered by your average fish or frog

One thing that is quite smart about the turtle is, they are in the right place, at the right time, to clean up any fresh fish or frog kills, the logic of the turtle seems to be 'no hurry'

If you see aggressive turtle foraging, a turtle trap can fish several a day out of a pond, easy enough to relocate to a decent sized public lake where folk like to go see them

Regards, andy
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