Stinkin' bait stealin', frog eatin' turtles!

[Grunt]

I had one of those 20 pound snappers as a pet for awhile. Kept it in my bathtub. This was before I had a steady woman.I had to catch it by the tail every couple of days and transfer it into a big wash basin when I wanted to take a shower. I kept going down to the river to catch bluegills to feed it. After a month or so I'd had enough and I took it to the river and let it go. Took two days to clean the tub.

[Lombard]

That one looks to be well fed. I used to know an old trapper up north, who swore that if you take the right cut of meat out of those snappers, that you would be back for more. He claimed that certain parts made good stew, other cuts made a better fry, and the rest goes to the dogs. He passed on before he could teach me the difference. Used to see huge turtles laying eggs along the Penobscot and Sabasticook Rivers, in north central Maine. 

[FlintWalker]

Lombard, he was right.  It seems that some of the cuts will taste great no matter how you cook them...amd others you just want to spit out!  To me, it all tastes good. It's just that some of the cuts are tough...very tough!
 The best meat in the whole turtle is the two little tiny backstraps hiding under a cradle of bone right along the center if the shell. It's hard to get, but it's goood!

[stickbender]

     My brother used to catch big soft shell snappers, and he would cut the meat up into cubes, and par boil it, and then deep fry it.
Like we used to cook Armadillos.  He said it tasted like beef.  He used to eat a lot of them.  Before he got into the FD, he operated a drag line, and he would dump a big ol turtle out on the bank, and he would hop out and catch it, and dump it into his cooler, and take it home, and eat it.  The Florida Cooter is supposed to be good to eat.  I have never had turtle before, but I have eaten a lot of armadillos, or " Land Prawns ", or possum on the half shell, etc.   

                                                                                  Wayne

[FlintWalker]

What's a cooter?...really

[El Destructo]

What's a cooter?...really

Shannon....a Florida Cooter is nothing but a Mud Turtle....Like a River Cooter....Red Eared Slider.... or a Painted Turtle....all resemble each other...

[stickbender]

     El D, Bingo!    Not to be confused with the "Other" one......
Supposedly, according to what I read, the skin on the neck of an alligator snapper, or I supposed any snapper, was used by the Indians, for bow strings, by spirally cutting a strip from it.
                                                     Wayne

[Lombard]

I'll be waiting for the build along on the turtle string. 

[Pappy]

I have seen the neck used for a bow grip,it was cool looking and feeling.  I have one in the freezer now,just ant had time to fool with it yet.
   Pappy