watch out for turtles!

[low 84]

so i'm going out to my buddies place about 15 miles outside of town where i keep my truck. came around one of the last big curves on this 2 lane country road and i see this big mongrel starting to creep up onto the edge of the road. so i pull over about 50 yards passed him and go back to check him out. naturaly i want to capture it just so i can show my friend and get him off the road in the process because he was trying to cross right after a blind turn and mostlikely would have been hit. being pretty much a city boy myself and my buddy wasn't with me so i didn't see any problem with this. i start to go and grab him from his sides and the dang thing jumps does a 90 deg turn in air and damn near bites my arm off i almost crapped my pants this thing was big, had a real fat 8 inch long tail, i guess it was a snapping turtle. i was expecting it to be sloth slow like the little box turtles we used to catch when we were kids, but it had reflexes like a cat. so i gave up on that adventure, i figured he would end up scaring the cars out of the way. thats what i get for trying to help the beast out.

pretty OT but i thought you guys might like to hear about a city boy getting his a$$ handed to him by a turtle

[shavedchevy]

LMAO... Damn turtles!!!! I'm sure glad we don't have them up here. They sound dangerous. LOL.

[NeCrOmAnCeR]

Wasn't a turtle. Was an Armadillo. A rabid finger eatin' one too.

[messed up c-10]

it wasnt an alligator snapping turtle was it? They have some pretty strong jaws. We caught one of those in a pond once. It was pretty freaky pulling that thing out of the water.

[low 84]

mabey it was, i had a big tail that was aligatorish looking and a fairly broad head with a pointy beak.

[Kendhul]

you are the only person i know that would stop to get a turtle outta the road...then get attacked by it

[87 Shortwide]

I figured you would be used to turtles...seeing that you drive one

[1969 GMC]

how big was it? they taste pretty good, but lots of bones. and watch out for that mouth, even after you cut a snapping turtle's head off it will continue to spasmodically snap its jaws for about two minutes. there is really no quick way to kill one, either. they really are the tanks of the animal kingdom.

[KShortell]

Originally Posted by 1969 GMC

...watch out for that mouth, even after you cut a snapping turtle's head off it will continue to spasmodically snap its jaws for about two minutes. there is really no quick way to kill one, either. they really are the tanks of the animal kingdom.

That's what I've always heard. It's kinda made me a bit skittish about 'em all my life...

[gldevall]

Was it's shell smooth or jagged? If it was jagged it was most probably the snapping turtle. I found one under our carport last weekend, it was about 6" in diameter. A little fellow so I picked him up and put it in the pond behind the house.

[the baron]

must have been a real "Ninja" turtle , right ?

[southernmutt33]

snapping turtles are bad....they stink to...the big ones anyways....they demand respect or will just take it from you the hard way...an i wouldnt put one in the pond behind the house....they will eventaully get HUGE. to the point where it will take 2 0r more big guys to pick it up...

[gldevall]

Well it wasn't my pond. LOL

[messed up c-10]

Here is a pretty big one.

[Stingray42]

thats not a turtle... it looks like a small dog that ran thru a asphalt truck... lol

[RockHQ]

LMFAO!

That thing looks like my ex-G/F with a hangover and PMS
Glad i don't have to wake up next to her anymore

[MIKE'67]

From your description it sounds like a teenage mutant ninja turtle

[TwinTurbo]

LOL sounds like an ally snapper and from the looks of it you got lucky, those things can snap a thick branch without any effort. Good way to loose a hand (they're fast too)

[Blue Beard]

Probably just one of those turtles the road crews installed that came off...just a little on the tipsy side and thought it was something else.

[Izzy]

You got owned by a turtle.

[mhicks]

Boy, that reminds me of an incident my son and I had we he was about 6. We lived in a town by the name of Merkel out in west Texas. We lived in town on a farm to market road. We came outside one morning and there was a big snapping turtle. It was about 2 feet across. Biggest turtle i had ever seen except in a zoo. We watched it for a while and a couple of teenages came by in a pickup and they decided they wanted to catch it and keep it. So they drove home and got a big bog to put it in and when they got back the adventure began. They found a big stick to kinda guide him into the box. The second they touched him it jumped straight up in the air about eighteen inches. It flipped me out. My son and I watched them for a while and it just laid there until they touched it with that stick and it would jump staight up every time. Thids thing had spikes on its back about 2 inches high and on its tail also. I had never seen anything like it. The finally got it loaded into the box and drove off with it. It really suprised me to see something like that in town. We did live near a small creek about 2 blocks away. but I sure wouldn't think that it would wander that far away from its home.

[low 84]

thats the same thing that scared me with this one. i was expecting it to just go inside its shell and hide. the last lthing i was expecting was for it to jump up at me

[8t5Silverado]

That sounds like an alligator snapping turtle to me. I just saw one by my subdivision a week ago.

Don't mess with them.

[N2TRUX]

Those snappers are mean mo-fo's. We used to catch them on trot lines when I was a kid. Even with a hook in their mouth they come at you with an attitude.
They do make a great stew if you know how to clean them. They have very white meat that tastes like chicken.... :p

[swervin ervin]

We call them cooters up around my parts. Stink like walking death. Everyone says they taste good (like chicken) but I'm not eating anything that is as ugly and stinks as bad as they do.

We got a lot of idiots around here that go cooter grapling (sp?). They get in the river or pond and go around the banks feeling for them. When they feel one, they jerk him out by his tail. Quite a few of the guys have nubs for fingers too.