Nershi wrote:Drunk_Dynasty wrote:I see smooth soft shell turtles a lot. Seen a a blandings last summer. Never seen the wood turtles or the map turtles or a spiny soft shell. Smooth soft shells turtles are hell catfish rigs. Seems like circle hooks do a better job not hooking them at least.
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Must be a southern thing. Never seen or even heard of someone seeing one up north.
Which one are you referring to? Softshells?
I've got video of the biggest one I've ever caught on the MS North of 200....luckily I hooked 'em in the paw and wasn't that hard getting close to the hook to cut the line. The shell was easily 18" end to end, basically circumference since softshells are so wide.
I've also caught them on the Red within ten miles of Canada.
I wish I was as lucky as you are to not encounter them. I think they're the most disgusting animal alive. They look like an alien's version of a dog or cat from some shithole swampy planet. Yet for some reason I've always had a hard time killing them....can't remember ever killing one....at least intentionally. There might be one or two that died after it took the hook and I I legitimately tried to cut the line or unhook it without killing it.
For whatever reason I've never had the same issue with snappers.
When going on our annual week long catfishing trip to the Red River with our relatives from Iowa we'd routinely ate snappers unfortunate enough to take our catfish bait. We always went on this trip in August. We'd take the turtle....get it to stick it's head back at camp, cut it's head off with a sharpened machete....we never cut one clean off, always had to finish it up with a knife once it was dead. Once the head was off we'd nail it's tail to a large tree and let it hang for a day and fully bleed out, sometimes we'd get back to camp tired the next day so it'd hang two days....in August heat and humidity, with flies and bees all over because of the blood, then we'd clean them which is as you could imagine a fukcing bitch. Everything about it sucks besides the meat. It made some bitchin' soup.
How we never get sick from handling and eating that shit is beyond me. They're about the most bacteria covered animal alive. I know cops or animal control when called on one stuck in a gutter trying to cross in the spring....they're instructed to never touch one with bare hands. I also remember them being really dangerous to kids handling them due to salmonella or something......
