Any experience with pond turtle traps?
 

I need to remove some turtles from one of my ponds and have been looking online. Does anyone have any experience or recommendations? I'd prefer to do it humanely (live & let live) and relocate them to another pond, but am open to Tim Hancock's mode of operation if necessary :). Thanks!

You need to call this guy: Call of the Wildman: Animal Planet SmileWavy

We live very close to a lake and get pond slider turtles digging holes in our yard to lay eggs. I usually carry the turtle back down to the lake and some wild animals dig up the eggs and eat them...

I shoot them (snapping turtles) if I see them in my "swimming" pond, but someone once gave me a LARGE fish hook on a chain that when tie to a floating milk jug and baited with a chunk of chicken supposedly will catch a snapping turtle eventually. Once you see the milk jug moving in the pond, you know you have one hooked. I have never needed to use it yet as I have not seen a turtle in the pond in a few years.

Turtles are very curious... we used to catch 'em by using a really big bobber or small balloon, hook w/ bait right below it just 2 inches or so down the line. Toss it out there and you'd see 'em all start haulin butt towards it

Turtle traps are not high tech. You need some netting, three hoops about two feet in diameter and a couple of four foot poles, notched in the ends to engage the end hoops.

The middle hoop has a cone shaped net attached. The apex of the cone is open and about a foot in diameter. The open end is held by some cords to the closed-end hoop.

The remainder of the netting is formed into a cylinder with the 'cone holding hoop in the middle and the other two hoops supporting the ends. The end toward which the cone points is closed with netting. The poles (two or three) are used to keep the trap in its working shape and removed for transportation or storage.
Bait with sardines in the closed end. Place in the pond with part of the cylinder above the water

Have fun getting snappers out.
Best
Les

What's wrong with turtles in a pond?

Little kids swim in our pond..... Snapping turtles are not welcome.

I'd say your more likely to be hit be an incoming meteor than get but by an unprovoked snapping turtle. Do you have a meteor shield?

We used to catch them while fishing for catfish when I was a kid. They always broke the line, but they make some pretty strong line these days.
Finding someone to take the hook out is another story. :eek:

It has been my experience that accidentally stepping on a snapping turtle (that you didn't see or even know was there) was viewed as "provocation" by said snapping turtle. ;)

I grew up hunting painteds on my grandparents farm.
Fond memories of that.
One day we caught 26 all scraping the bottom of the grumman canoe. Nails on chalkboard.
Took them on shore and had races.

Another early memory was from a summer camp.
Someone caught a huge snapper with a tail thicker than your wrist and it took all your strength to hold him up.

Another catch was a softshell bigger than a dinner plate.
Had to shake him when he's reaching back. Suckers have a long neck and are fast.

I like turtles, but each to their own.

Tell you what..... go find one about a foot or so in diameter and step on it with one foot and put your toes in front of it with your other foot and see what happens. If you can do that several times in a row without issue, then "maybe" I will reconsider what I do when I find a snapping turtle in my pond once every few years or so. ;)

There are a lot of wild animals that will bite you if provoked and I would put snapping turtles in with them. Almost anything will get nasty if you corner it.

That said I don't think it happens nearly often enough to warrant exterminating them. Snapping turtles are predators and pretty good ones. Like most successful predators they are very aware of their surroundings and if they have the opportunity they will retreat from something big enough to hurt them that they can't eat.

I can't find any evidence online of people being inadvertently bitten by snappers that weren't flat out messing with them.

I do not go to remote ponds looking to kill hundreds of turtles for fun.... That said, I spray MY lawn to kill pest weeds and I spray MY buildings to kill pest insects. When the occasional pest varmint (skunk, coon, snapping turtle, etc) takes up residence on MY property I deal with them however I see fit. ;)

I deal with one or two a month.

Around here they are a common road hazard.

When I come across one I'll stop to move it off the road.

They are nasty little f'rs and will bite anything that they can reach.

Moved one last week, little bastard was hissing at me before I got within 3 feet of him.

Thanks guys! I need to do some reading. I wouldn't have a problem with "some" turtles in this particular pond and there are three more ponds adjacent that they, and the muskrats (another issue) can have all the leeway they want. The problem? Quite a few turtles that are more than a foot in diameter and they eat a LOT of my bass and crappie minnows daily. I've noticed a reduction in little bitty fishes...thus goes the food chain. I'm gonna play nice and relocate a few to the adjacent ponds (or ponds miles away if I have too), and see how that goes.

Spent a good part of my youth fishing in cow ponds. I hate snapping turtles. I'd rather deal with snakes. Here's another non-humane but fun and challenging method we employed as kids.

We used to take a Heddon Tiny Torpedo, remove the front treble hook and spinners leaving only the rear treble hook. Tie on to our favorite casting rig and practice our accuracy. The turtle won't feel the line on it's back. Pull the bait up close and snag the turtle. Hard shell turtles were dispatched and soft shells would go into Grandma's sauce piquante. -J

No Chuck Berry "My ding a ling" songs?

YouTube

Dynamite !

Revived and old thread...

Finally had enough....some turtles have to go!

I have yellow sliders (not snappers) that love to bask in the sun so I just purchased a Pond King cage type trap that's designed to float. Anyone have experience? If this doesn't get 'em, then I will resort to head shots with my new air rifle....but I don't want to go there...yet :). Designed to float, but I wonder if this trap could also sit on the bottom at the shallow end....where the turtles seem to be. I'm just looking to remove a bunch of smaller ones which disturb the fish spawning beds....the biggin's have earned their right to co-habitate with my fishys.

I spotted one that's probably 30 years old last year...I swear it was nearly 5' long from head to tail...and that's no "fisherman's tale" either :)

While lots of people do it, you are not supposed to relocate wildlife - at least not in Ohio. Kill it or leave it alone. If you've got a problem critter on your property you aren't supposed to make it some one else's problem.

Maybe put some type of pond netting between the fish area and turtles? Would have to be very fine.
The bigger turtles are prob the ones doing most of the damage.
I have red sliders and the biggest is the size of a large dinner plate. She will strip all the green plants in the water...always looking for more food. I do have fish also..and they coexist fine, but it's rare for any small fry to survive.
I heard the hardest part of raising them is to isolate them and find food small enough for them to handle.
If you do catch the turtles..put them on CL. They are on there a lot. Ask $5 or less ea. and they will go fast. That way they would have a good home. I wouldn't try shooting them. They will end up wounded in the pond rotting.

You have to relocate turtles literally miles away, or they will return :( There are two large lakes I cross on my way home (from my rural property), one has an environmental center on it. Maybe I'll ask....maybe I won't :).
The turtles will thrive there and won't be a problem.

If I have to kill some, I can make clean "head shots" as they bask on the bank from 25 yds. or so....they skedaddle at the sight of a human, and are VERY alert...unbelievably so. The few I've had a chance to snag are when they are going from one of my ponds to another. Time to thin the herd....one way or another.

The smaller ones do most of the damage to spawning beds and competing with and eating small fry....big ones do not and are vegetarians by that size.

Can you eat them?
The Chinese make turtle soup...yummy.

My ancestors used to eat their ancestors, and we're not Chinese :). I'm the fourth generation maintaining it...my little slice of paradise.

When I was young..my Gpa and I would catch box turtles and open them up to get the meat out.
Made excellent soup, and the meat tasted like chicken!
Box turtles are now protected..hardly ever see any of them anymore.

Would be hard for me to do that.

pic of my pond last summer


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1488663259.jpg

When my brother and I used to see them down in the local river we'd snag 'em somehow, or shoot them w/.22's and take them to one of the restaurants in town...owned by a Chinese fellow. He'd give us a 25 cents each for them and put turtle soup on his menu.
That's the only association I know about turtles and the Chinese.

Was driving on a 4 lane street. In the incoming lanes a large turtle was almost across the road. A young lady was stopped, she had gotten out and was leaning over about to pick up the turtle. It was only 10 ft from the curb. Just as she grabbed the turtle I honked. Startled she instantly stood straight up tossing the poor turtle about 60ft off the side of the road. Couldn't stop laughing for 30 minutes. Just thinking of it still makes me giggle.

Family has some land we use for recreation. It has a cabin and 3 large ponds. One of the ponds was stocked with perch and bass. Turtles took over and the fish disappeared. After catching and or shooting as many as we could it still took a few years to get the fish back, even with stocking the pond. We even built a stand in some trees close to the pond to shoot turtles so the bullets would not ricochet. Now if the anyone sees turtles while fishing they also have some fun taking out turtles.

The pond the cabin is next to has a swimming beach, zip line, rope swing, dock, and floating diving platform. Keep various turtle traps in that pond. Both swimmer traps and sun bather traps. One of the things we do when going to the property is run the traps. They are never empty. The ponds where we shoot the turtles has better fishing than the trapped pond. Brother that manages the property thought it would be the other way around.

Used to have a small pond that was great for catfish. Could go catch 2 or 3 nice sized catfish in an hour easily. Then stopped being able to catch any. The last time I fished that pond I spent an entire day fishing and all I caught was 2 big snapping turtles. When researching the turtle infestation the wildlife department told us the turtle population wouldn't effect the fish population. Our experience was the turtle population had a huge negative impact on the fish population. We also found the wildlife department would stock your pond(s) free, but you had to allow public access and fishing.

Normally they will do anything to avoid human contact...but yes..they will snap at hands if picked up.
I feed mine by hand sometimes...have had them latch onto my finger when feeding them. It takes a bit to get them to release. They are not the smartest animals!

When I was a kid there was a guy who would walk out to our farm from town (about 2 miles). Everyone called him "Pidge." Pidge would climb up in the barn rafters at dusk and grab the pigeons that roosted there. He'd wring their necks and put them in a bag. When he had enough pigeons he would walk out to our pond and lay on his belly on the bank and feel around under the water for a turtle hole. He would work his way all around the pond. Every now and then he'd drag one out and throw it back away from the water. He had a bat that he'd bash the turtle with. He'd go home with a dozen or so pigeons and 5 or six snapping turtles for dinner. I can't recall how often he came .

Was it just me that could hear banjos while reading this? :D