This is different

[tamrock]

We see prairie dogs, rabbits, snakes, frogs, voles, coyotes, but nothing like this before. Dumb Bella wanted to get in and check it out closer, but Ollie thought there's something really wrong about that critter. I guess he knows if it doesn't need to run away fast and escape, it's better to just leave it alone.

 

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[worldtalker]

We see prairie dogs, rabbits, snakes, frogs, voles, coyotes, but nothing like this before. Dumb Bella wanted to get in and check it out closer, but Ollie thought there's something really wrong about that critter. I guess he know if it doesn't need to run away fast and escape, it's better to just leave it alone.

What's around for water?

 

[tamrock]

What's around for water?

A creek off to the left of the picture.

 

[worldtalker]

A creek off to the left of the picture.

I watched them under a bridge as a kid with their mouth open twitching that tongue enticing lunch.

 

[Old Dude]

A few brave souls here in the east say they taste wonderful. That is what I hear anyway. I don't know

 

[releventchair]

We used to eat them. Now it's nice to just see a big one.
Ol gator snappers can hold their own.
It is getting near egg laying time before long here,midwesterly , they'll travel a ways to find the right spot to dig a nest.

 

[tamrock]

A few brave souls here in the east say they taste wonderful. That is what I hear anyway. I don't know

My grandpa ate em. He lived most his life in Burlington Iowa on the Mississippi with the exception of going to France in 1918 to fight the Germans.

 

[CoilyGirl]

Tastes lik chick n

 

[tamrock]

We used to eat them. Now it's nice to just see a big one.
Ol gator snappers can hold their own.
It is getting near egg laying time before long here,midwesterly , they'll travel a ways to find the right spot to dig a nest.

I thought that's what she just might be doing in looking for a egg pit to dig. She had enough of us and walked back towards the creek side and when we came back Ollie sniffed her out as she was again back out and on the other side of the trail in some tall grass. I guess I can call these snappers in Colorado a "mile high snapper". This is the 3rd one I've seen in the creeks here. The 1st time I saw one, I though it was odd that I'd see them at this high in altitude.

 

[austin]

That is a cool find. Made the dogs' day too. Thanks for sharing...

 

[old digger]

Interesting that you found one at your elevation. I had a Beagle that got nipped in the nose by a snapping turtle. He was lucky that he didn't lose a chunk of his nose, it just left a small scar. After that he never got too close to them, but would bark at them quite aggressively.

 

[tamrock]

Interesting that you found one at your elevation. I had a Beagle that got nipped in the nose by a snapping turtle. He was lucky that he didn't lose a chunk of his nose, it just left a small scar. After that he never got too close to them, but would bark at them quite aggressively.

According to what I've read this one is on the very edge of their range here in Colorado. This isn't to far from the site I found some artifact on a bluff that sits where two spring feed creeks and this one that is feed from the rocky mountain snow pack meet. I would think these guys would have been part of the food source of the native Americans that occupied the site I found?. I just got back from having a look around that site and found nothing this day. I need to leave these two dogs of mine at home so I can concentrate on looking, as they both have no interest in hunting for artifacts. This map suggest these snappers will be found also in your area there also OD/MT. Once their in the water they're pretty elusive creatures. The last one I saw was only for a split second as he was sunning on a stump in one of the bigger spring feed creeks as I walked up to it, but into the murky water soon as he saw me.

 

[ronwoodcraft]

Excellent photo of it!!....As a kid growing up in rural areas of Oklahoma, I had lots of experiences with them. Most think of turtles being slow, but it's amazing how fast they can bite you. They have a long neck and can strike like a snake. Maybe it was because I was seven years old, but I swear one could shoot his head out of that shell about ten inches. That was when I learned not to mess with them........Later as a teenager, I had left a cane pole set out in a pond where there were some big catfish. Came back a while later, and thought I had a catfish. The line was tangled in some cat tails and I followed the line with my hand into the murky water. When I got to the end I got bit by a snapper about the size of the one in your pics.

 

[tamrock]

Excellent photo of it!!....As a kid growing up in rural areas of Oklahoma, I had lots of experiences with them. Most think of turtles being slow, but it's amazing how fast they can bite you. They have a long neck and can strike like a snake. Maybe it was because I was seven years old, but I swear one could shoot his head out of that shell about ten inches. That was when I learned not to mess with them........Later as a teenager, I had left a cane pole set out in a pond where there were some big catfish. Came back a while later, and thought I had a catfish. The line was tangled in some cat tails and I followed the line with my hand into the murky water. When I got to the end I got bit by a snapper about the size of the one in your pics.

When I was little we'd visit my grandpa in Burlington IA and him and I go fish in the Mississippi and just stick the cane poles in the sand and wait. Grandpa would pick up these chub's for bait and I was sitting there staring at to chub's just sitting on a stringer in the shallow water and I saw something come out of the murky water and take a bite out of one of those chub's, so I yelled to grandpa that somethings eating the bait. He came over and had a look for a few and then turned around and found a nice pole shape piece of drift wood and waited over the bait of chub's and then stabbed it into the head of a snapper just like this one. I thought he killed it because because of it eating the bait, but no Grandpa ate them. We caught one nice catfish and that turtle and walked back to his place up a big ass hill I remember, as grandpa was born in 1892 and a big time old school kind of fella who never saw the need to have a drivers licence or own a car. If he had to go farther then he could hike, he'd take a bus. He was a complete health nut with what he ate and always exercised. I was pretty little at the time that happened and we went back to Chicago before I got to have a taste of snapping turtle.

 

[ronwoodcraft]

When I was little we'd visit my grandpa in Burlington IA and him and I go fish in the Mississippi and just stick the cane poles in the sand and wait. Grandpa would pick up these chub's for bait and I was sitting there staring at to chub's just sitting on a stringer in the shallow water and I saw something come out of the murky water and take a bite out of one of those chub's, so I yelled to grandpa that somethings eating the bait. He came over and had a look for a few and then turned around and found a nice pole shape piece of drift wood and waited over the bait of chub's and then stabbed it into the head of a snapper just like this one. I thought he killed it because because of it eating the bait, but no Grandpa ate them. We caught one nice catfish and that turtle and walked back to his place up a big ass hill I remember, as grandpa was born in 1892 and a big time old school kind of fella who never saw the need to have a drivers licence or own a car. If he had to go farther then he could hike, he'd take a bus. He was a complete health nut with what he ate and always exercised. I was pretty little at the time that happened and we went back to Chicago before I got to have a taste of snapping turtle.

I doubt you missed much. I remember helping my own grandpa clean one. We ate it, and from what I remember it was Okay, but don't remember ever thinking " Dang I wish I had some more turtle.

 

[Old Dude]

My great uncle married a native Floridian that loved turtle soup like a fat kid loves cake

 

[tamrock]

Tastes lik chick n

and a chicken says "eat more turtle"

 

[Bullet:Mich.]

They are real good eating but you have to know how to clean then. In MI now there is a limit on how many that you can have in your possession during turtle trapping season.

 

[bill_wabo]

We have those here but don't seem them often. Thanks for showing, heard they can snap off a finger real quick and with a clean cut. I'd try to enter the water to hand catch some catfish, but not those.