When I was about 14 we had a friend of the family that we went hunting turtles in the winter with. We got a few and my dad went with Verle a few more times and got a couple more. We used to gig them in the mud along creeks.
I always wondered who the guys were that got the turtle for a restaurant in Czech town here in town and I finially talked to one of the guys who was in on the turtle catching last year who got the turtle with his friends. This was a czech restaurant that served delecious food and on saturdays they served turtle and if you weren’t sitting down and had ordered by noon it was sold out.
My dad cleaned them and my mom used to just roll them in flour and pan fry them and occasionally make a turtle roast with vegetables just like a beef roast. Its been awhile but I think my dad said turtles have 7 or 8 diffrent kinds of meat, all with diffrent flavors. All I know is that it was delecious.
Back when we giged them we used to look for warm spots on the creek bottom and gig there but when I talked to this old turtle hunter he said they giged around logs laying on the creek bottom, he thought the slight warming of the ground by the sun hitting the logs is why they were around the logs. I’m thinking about making some cages and setting a few this summer to get a few, its been awhile since I ate turtle and anytime I can get my hands on some I’ll eat it.
Just north of here was a lake that the dam gave way last year. Greg, a Czech that I’ve known since I was a kid now lives there and he said the lake was full of snappers and even though the lake is now gone the turtles are still there and he said some big ones too, so maybe I’ll try there, eigther there or the backwaters of the Cedar river and the creeks that run into them from my jonboat, do that while running dittypoles.