Namely, turtles and frogs. I've speared some frogs in my day as an aside to fishing ponds and lakes, but never gone after them specifically. I'm guessing a gig, a bag, a flashlight and about a gallon of DEET would be your basic rig, but any other comments welcome. Can green frogs be eaten as well as your average bull frog? Best to blind them with light? These kinds of things would help.

As far as snappers, we get them here and they can get big (20 lbs. plus easy) and I've killed exactly one, but gave it to a guy from Louisiana who knew how to deal with it. I've heard they're great eating, but after playing with that foul smelling and equally abhorrent looking beast, I wasn't convinced.

I've been seeing them recently, and have decided one (to start with) must die so I can try adding it to the list of critters I can chase and eat with a smile. Convince me that it's something I want to do, will someone?

Cheers, and thanks for any responses.

snowshoes, squirrels and upland birds. Wish folks would actually post about stuff like that here, but over the years figured there to be no point. People mostly come here to gloat and
I hunt lots of small game: cottontails, lie about killing the next door neighbor's cat, and for me, that shit don't float, as they say.[/QUOTE] Your quote... Didn't find any mention of turtles? Keep up the posts on all your small game hunting safari's, someone has to keep this forum alive

Oh, brother...

Surely you've got somebody's cat or baby or something to torture elsewhere, no?

I don't understand your attitude. It is ok to kill a turtle that you don't intend to eat, but it's not ok to kill a cat. In Asia, cats are
definitely table fare, but so are turtles. Is
your logic skewed because you perceive that one critter is more worthy of living? Killing is a primal act of something that must kill to live because it doesn't possess chlorophil for photosysensis. I guess an elitist attitude allows you to be high and mightly about yoour preference for animals to kill. I just don't understand.

Since you seem to be a bit slow on the uptake, I'll explain it carefully for you: I have no problems killing feral cats, or *any animal that needs killing for one valid reason or another*. You and your ilk giggling with glee at killing an animal for shitting on your lawn, or making paw prints on your car, or running across your driveway doesn't count in my book. It's the torture and emphasis on killing for the sake of killing, and particularly the kind of talk about relishing the animal's suffering that bothered me so about the posts here, and the out and out *lies*, the 'can you top that' bullshit stories told that burns me. I guess you missed the part about the guy from LA eating that turtle. Do you and some of the other cretins here have trouble with the English language? What part of that is so hard to fucking understand? I live to hunt and fish, but the kind of glee I've read here in the past not only makes me ashamed to be associated with 'hunters', but makes me question what your fathers did to you in the middle of the night as children to make you so demented.

Clearer now?

First, the leopard frog is the best eating frog, way better then bullfrogs but smaller.
Second don't kill a turtle unless you are going to eat it. Find out how to cut them up and you will find out the meat is fantastic fried or made into soup when the turtle is large. They need thinned in some ponds because of damage to fish and young ducks but don't waste them.

quote:

Originally posted by bfrshooter:
First, the leopard frog is the best eating frog, way better then bullfrogs but smaller.
Second don't kill a turtle unless you are going to eat it. Find out how to cut them up and you will find out the meat is fantastic fried or made into soup when the turtle is large. They need thinned in some ponds because of damage to fish and young ducks but don't waste them.

Leopard Frog,,,,,yum.
A fella I shoot and hunt with has a small farm.He actually got into raising these frogs.Instead of gigging them,he uses a cane pole,3-4 feet of heavy fishing line and a large treble hook weighed down with lead.I think the hook is from a snagged lure/plug retrieval gizmo.
Anyway,ya hold a light on em and reach out and snag em from behind.It's a hoot and the legs make some fine eating.
Kamo,ask to watch someone clean a turtle.You will be surprised how much meat you get offa medium sized snapper.
There is some crazy guy that lives up a nearby hollow.This dude eats box turtles. He ain't dead yet,but I ain't interested.
I catch turtles in our larger lakes by free wheeling a spring lizard.Don't use a sinker and hook em thru the mouth.This way they swim with just the hook to weigh em down.

Turtles make great target practice. They're our version of prarie dogs, red mist an d all. They are also a great way to learn your favorite deer hunting rifle. Mostly we have mud turtles that love to fill stock ponds. It's incredible how many one pond can hold!

They're like cats, good target practice, and not good for much else in this area. Just don't turture them...

quote:

Originally posted by bfrshooter:
First, the leopard frog is the best eating frog, way better then bullfrogs but smaller.
Second don't kill a turtle unless you are going to eat it. Find out how to cut them up and you will find out the meat is fantastic fried or made into soup when the turtle is large. They need thinned in some ponds because of damage to fish and young ducks but don't waste them.

Thanks for the help. I think. Leopard frogs are endangered here, so are off-limits, as well as being considerably smaller than the BF.

I do appreciate the other comments (again, I think). I'm just not sure whether or not to trust you boys just yet!

I've hooked some genuinely large snappers (for these parts, anyway) fishing small ponds with dead shiners (almost manhole cover-sized shells), but as I never knew how to take the beasts apart, gave them a pass, save for that one that the Cajun knew what to do with. I wish I could have watched how he dealt with it, but had to split. I think he mentioned hanging it in a tree and letting it bleed out first...

As far as the fishing poles for frogs, I have heard of this, sort of. A regular fishing fly (the feathered variety) is said to work well. Frog just goes to eat the thing, and voila, frog on! Not much fight to them, though.

I figure if you hook up to a bullfrog with a Fly-pole,ya got your hands full.What fun.
I haven't heard of that way.
I do know a weighted treble works great with a cane.
You can purchase bullfrogs to stock over the net.

quote:

Originally posted by poletax:
I figure if you hook up to a bullfrog with a Fly-pole,ya got your hands full.What fun.
I haven't heard of that way.
I do know a weighted treble works great with a cane.
You can purchase bullfrogs to stock over the net.

What you're talking about sounds like what we call a snagging hook. Here, we use them to snag pogies/bunker/menhaden/herring to liveline in the Atlantic. Sounds like a finesse game, getting it near enough to a frog to skewer...

I'll probably just go with a gig, and hit some swamps or bogs.

Thanks for the input.

Kamo Gari,

Thanks for making me feel welcome and jumping to the conclusion that I condone any animal torture.
It was just that I had noted in many of your posts that you were deriding folks for killing cats but then you tell of killing a turtle and giving it away rather than eating it. I was just curious about the logic involved in deciding what animal is ok to kill. Since you seem to prefer rage to reason I guess there is no use in asking for an intelligent discussion about the decison making process involved in picking an animal to kill. Thanks for nothing.

quote:

Originally posted by Slowfart:
Kamo Gari,

Thanks for making me feel welcome and jumping to the conclusion that I condone any animal torture.
It was just that I had noted in many of your posts that you were deriding folks for killing cats but then you tell of killing a turtle and giving it away rather than eating it. I was just curious about the logic involved in deciding what animal is ok to kill. Since you seem to prefer rage to reason I guess there is no use in asking for an intelligent discussion about the decison making process involved in picking an animal to kill. Thanks for nothing.

Had you been here more than a short while, you'd perhaps have learned that over the years I attempted to learn why it was that people in this forum turned it into a cat killing torture/sadism extravaganza, with any conenction to hunting utterly lost. I was attacked, berated and told to fuck off. You made the incorrect assumption that like them, I kill for the sake of killing alone, and I don't. I knew that guy would eat that snapper, and wanted to learn how to dismantle them for me on future hunts. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't stick around to wait for him to butcher it, and so offered it to him, and he accepted. If you can't see the difference in the two, you're beyond any help my explanation can muster.

Try reading back for the last year on this forum, and maybe a little light will go off in your head, but with your previous comments and as far as I was concerned, you were just another one of the sick fucks that haunted this forum. If you're not, then I guess I apologize for being a mite quick on the trigger.

Hope that helps explain a bit.

KG

And BTW, rage? Not even close. Disgusted, chagrined and sickened, yes. Enraged? Hardly.

No hostility intended. I have always been curious
about peoples reasons for killing beyond the need to fill their bellys. I hear negative things about hunting from people who eat meat from the store without connecting their activity to the killing of cattle. I varmint hunt which is for the most part needless killing. At times I wonder why I am doing it and then another prairie dog comes out on a mound and my trigger finger tightens. I think it is related to the primal survival instinct where we had to kill to live. I think modern hunting fills that basic need to feel like a provider, but we often find ways to rationalize why we do it in modern context. I don't make a big deal of it, but to me if I am going to shoot something I make sure that the shot is placed well and death is as close to instanteous as possible. Any one who tortures an animal is to my way of thinking a sicko. He is not a hunter by any stretch of the imagination.

I am reluctant to go back and read the old posts because I don't need to clutter my mind with crap.
Enough said.

OK, well I'm wide open to civil discussions. I too have killed 'varmints', and it is a blurry line indeed. The woodchucks I've killed I've eaten from, and the one red fox I've killed I have its fur and skull, but did they *need* to die? No. And that's why I never really got into any dedicated varmint hunting; I just couldn't justify it to *myself*. But then there's the rub then, because let's face it, although I eat virtually all of what I kill, I don't kid myself that it's out of necessity or for any basis in sustenance. So, the bottom line may be that I'm a damned hypocrite, as I certainly love hunting, and part of that, like it or not, is the killing part. That said, it was the kind of over-the-top thril kill threads so prevalent here that got my goat, and while I realized a great deal of it was pure fantasy-- hunts conducted in front of the computer with a Jack and Coke companion--nevertheless the glorifying of killing the next door neighbor's cat under cover of darkness and the like just drove me ape shit. I feel it reflects horribly on us to those that are maybe on the fence as far as hunting or perhaps could be made to see that the hunter's raison d'etre is not simply to wallow and rejoice in blood and guts, but are staunch conservationists and in many cases, love the animals we hunt in a way that isn't often understood by non-hunters.

Anyway, and again, I don't have any problems--NONE--with any hunting or killing of varmints or nuisance animals, especially if their existence is detrimental to those that have to live with them, but I do not, and will not ever condone the kind of killing such as much of what was glorified here. It just plain bothers me to hear about drowning, decapitating, burning, detonating, poisoning, crippling and all the other cat killing crap I've read here. It just goes against all I believe in as a hunter, and as a person. My pair of coppers on the matter.

Just give me a minute to don my body armor, as usually this is when my bashing begins...

On catching frogs.

quote:

I'll probably just go with a gig, and hit some swamps or bogs.

Read MA state game laws carfully. You may find there are many waterways where gigs are illeagal because the waterways are alos trout streams. (I don't know this, but suspect it based on other states I have chased frogs in.)

We used .22 cal air rifles,(.177's of the that day didn't have the "zap" needed), and short, stiff fiberglass fishing rods with a 1" dia treble and a swatch of red felt stuck on the hooks. If the frog doesn't take the hook like a fly, The hook is big enough to snag them with and not loose them. If you are hooking them, you will need a board to lay them on and a batton to smack 'em in the head to kill them.

Some other notes on shooting frogs:
The absolute best shot is accross the eye orbits, getting both eyes from the side, this hits the "off switch" and they don't jump after the hit or sink to the bottom.
A hit through the ears will also instantly kill but they will sink.
Don't bother with a head-on shot in deep or murky water, they will jump then sink.

Great info; thanks very much Rusty.

I have no problem killing varmints to control them. Rabies, mange and decimating game animals call for killing some off. Edible animals should not be wasted. If you don't eat them but give them to someone who does, it is not a waste and I admire you for it. I give my neighbors deer every year, even butcher them for some of the women. Nothing wasted!

Kamo Gari

I grew up in Louisiana where bull frogs are definitely a delicacy and I've bagged a train load over the years. In Louisiana the use of a gig is illegal so we caught them with our hands, used a "frog grab"(See pic below), or best of all, used a sculling paddle.



Froggin = Two guys in a flat bottom boat with trolling motor. The guy in the back runs the trolling motor. The guy up front uses a head light to spot the frogs and then does the grabbing. The brighter the head light the better, as it will tend to "freeze" the frogs on the bank. The frog grabs (pictured above) really didn't work that well as they weren't strong enough to hold the frog. If a frog could get one of his rear feet between the clamps he was generally strong enough to push them apart and get away. We used to cut strips of rubber from bicycle tires and wrap them around the grabs to make the spring much stronger. Even so, we still lost frogs occasionaly when using the grabs.

Most of the time though, we would just grab them with our hands or better yet....smack them with a sculling paddle. You know, the little boat paddles that are about 2 ft long? Guy running the trolling motor would just ease the boat up to the frog with the guy in front keeping the headlight blinding the frog......then....SMACK with the sculling paddle.

As long as the bank wasn't too steep the sculling paddle prety much had a 100% success rate...LOL It didn't kill them....just knocked them out for a bit. We would then put them in a burlap feed sack. After 15-20 minutes they would revive. By keeping them alive in the feed sack, we didn't have to worry about keeping them iced down as you would if you had used a gig or shot them with a rifle (also illegal in LA)

Wow....this really brought back memories. I'm thinking I'll get out there and do some froggin soon!!!

firstshot
-------------------------------
Make your first shot count!

KG,

Talking about gigging and such brings back boocoo memories. Using a fish hook with a wee bit of red rag on it and swinging it over the frog sometimes works, but gigging or 'frog grabbing' is a much more productive way.

For cleaning the frog, the best way I've found is to drive a nail into a tree limb about 4' off the ground and cutting the head off the nail. Slam the frog's head onto the nail, then use a sharp knife to cut his hide around the hips. Grab onto the skin at the top of the cut and yank. Then pull him off the nail and use a small hatchet or a big knife and cut the legs off at the hip and the feet off at the ankle.

Take the legs and roll them into an egg mix, then into a paper bag full of spiced up flour (garlic powder, season all, etc.) and then into a deep fat fryer. A heavy duty pot full of crico will work for that. Heat the crisco to around 400 degrees. Drop the legs in and when they float, they're done.

Mmm, good.

quote:

Originally posted by RupertBear:

Take the legs and roll them into an egg mix, then into a paper bag full of spiced up flour (garlic powder, season all, etc.) and then into a deep fat fryer. A heavy duty pot full of crico will work for that. Heat the crisco to around 400 degrees. Drop the legs in and when they float, they're done.

Mmm, good.

Mmmmmm. That's how my dad and I used to do it when I was growing up in Indiana, delicious.

Had a lot of fun floating around the reservoirs at night gigging frogs. Snappers were popular too. My father-in-law up in Indiana recently killed a big one in his farm pond that was working over his hybrid bluegills. He said it was good eating. I've seen those suckers snap a broomstick right in two, got to watch your fingers.

quote:

For cleaning the frog.. Heat the crisco to around 400 degrees. Drop the legs in and when they float, they're done.

Mmm, good.

That settles it; I'm heading into the swamp ASAP.

Thanks, Rupe!

In most places alligator snappers are protected, so if its a snapper you're after, make sure you're catching common snappers. Box turtles are protected in most places too because too many people thought they'd make neat pets and depleted their numbers - I'd leave them alone for no other reason than I think they'd be too much trouble for the their size. Common snapper is quite delicious when fried I'm told. And according to my relatives, so is softshell turtle.

Frogging is fun bare handed, but down here you have to watch for snakes. Last time I did it, me and my dad caught 13 in about an hour with nothing more than a swamp boat and a big ass spotlight. Big frogs are tasty too!

When I was a kid the ole man and I used to go for frogs and turtles, big bullfrogs to me had the best leggs,,only thing to remember is cut the muscle behind the knee, in hot oil them will spas, scared the bejesus out of mom,,,

snappers the ole man would cut the head off then hang up to drain awhile, flip him over pop the shell off the bottom,,he would cut the legs thighs off and some meat up around the neck,,every thing else went to the hogs,,

Mom would cube the meat cover with Adolphs meat tenderizer, let set over night, in the morning she would mix up flour,pepper ans seasoning salt, little egg wash roll and deep fry in a large black dutch oven.

Was he standard way of cooking what she called the odd ball stuff, gator,snake and such

Now if it was still leagl, green sea turtle was some of the very best eating I ever had

When I was a kid I use to go down to the old riverbed behind our house during the winter and ice skete the river and shot turtles with my 22 that would come up to the air pockets to breath then take my Boy Scout hatchet and chop the turtle out of the ice. At the end of the old river where it would peter out a old man lived in a shack and he would give me a nickel a turtle. I would average about three or four turtles a week. He would boil them and I have to say I never tasted the soup. I was kinda scared of the old guy cause personal hygeine was not an issue with this guy and I was twelve at the time. But he always had a pocket full of nickels! Hum... would that make me a 12 year old professional hunter?

Great responses the last few; thanks!

Recently back from a successful alligator hunt. I'll post pics when I get a chance.

I haven't eaten turtle for a long time. Back home in SE Nebraska, my dad's friends used to have a big turtle feed. They fried the turtle like chicken. Each part of the turtle seemed to have its own distinct flavor. My dad always told me that there were 7 flavors ranging from chicken to lobster. I'm serious about the different flavors. They are really good eating and I recommend trying it atleast once.

The way they caught their turtles was by either shooting them off of logs or the top of the water or they would wade around with pitchforks to find the business end and catch them. Some of these guys were missing fingers for finding the wrong business end.

The way we caught frogs was dangle worms or a red salmon egg fly infront of them. That was really fun, but they are a pain to get off the hooks. I am also a fan of shooting them with an air-gun.

quote:

Originally posted by Kamo Gari:
As far as snappers, we get them here and they can get big (20 lbs. plus easy) and I've killed exactly one, but gave it to a guy from Louisiana who knew how to deal with it. I've heard they're great eating, but after playing with that foul smelling and equally abhorrent looking beast, I wasn't convinced.

I've been seeing them recently, and have decided one (to start with) must die so I can try adding it to the list of critters I can chase and eat with a smile. Convince me that it's something I want to do, will someone?

Cheers, and thanks for any responses.

Sorry for the length of this reply, but your post brought up some fond memories and maybe some information you can use.

I grew up on a river and spent most of my youth fishing, hunting, trapping and set lining. God I wish I could have those days back. One way I made some money to buy boats and motors was to sell turtle meat. When it was available, taverns in the area would make turtle soup and sell it to their customers. I can say with out a doubt I was welcomed in many taverns way before I was old enough to drink. While my buddies were making pennies on their paper routes, I was dealing turtle and smoked catfish to the taverns for big money.

At that time there were no laws protecting snappers, and in hindsight I probably hit them pretty hard. The rules today do not allow a person to use any of the methods I used. The laws also protect the large adult breeding stock which is the only thing I kept. When they would come up on land to lay their eggs, they were particularly vulnerable. As a youngster I built a trailer to pull behind my bike to pick up turtles. When I was old enough to drive I would stay up for as many hours as I could, driving the back roads near water to pick them up. When I butchered them I would plant the eggs from them but most of the time the coons came along and dug them up.

When they were done laying, I would start trapping them. The law now is you must use hoop nets. I used my leg hold muskrat traps. I would take a sheephead (trash fish) and wire it to the shore so it was just in a few inches of water. I would set my leg holds in the mud around the sheephead. When the snapper came in and grabbed the fish, he would have to put his feet down to pull the fish off the wire and get caught in the traps.

I also used baited drop hooks from willows overhanging the water. I would bait a 5/0 hook with a big piece of dead fish and tie it too a stout limb so the bait was just at surface level. Snappers have a very good sense of smell and love fish they don’t have to catch. For many it was their downfall.

Butchering a snapper can be a chore if you don’t have the proper equipment. I had a couple of thin bladed filet knives, both so sharp you could shave with them. Turtle hide dulls knives very quickly. I also made a tool to seperate the shell from the backbone. There is a layer of meat, very light in color and tender as can be, located between the backbone and shell. To remove this meat from a normal animal wouldn’t be a problem but a snappers backbone is connected to the shell by bones located on each side of the backbone. In between these bones is where this meat is and is worth going after on a large turtle. The tool is made from an 18 inch piece of leaf spring, sharpened on one end and a handle attached to the other. The sweep in the spring follows the curve of the turtles back and will break the support bones from the shell.



When I butchered, I would normally cut the heads off in the evening and hang the turtles tail up to bleed out over night. I wouldn’t butcher until the next day because of their nervous reaction to being cut up. If you start cutting too soon the legs are going back and forth like they are trying to get away, and you get scratched and cut. You can play “tug of war†with their feet and cut them off, but the legs will still be going. I would skin the turtle first, then use the thinnest of the filet knives and seperate the shell halves. There is a junction “seam†that you can easily cut through between the halves, near the outer edge of the bottom shell. The bottom shell is cut free of the meat and then gut the turtle. If you don’t have a “turtle chizel†a large wood chizel can work also. Stand the turtle on the rear of its shell and brace it between your knees and using the chizel and some kind of hammer, chop the backbone loose from the shell, and then seperate the rest of the meat from the shell. If I was to sell it I would bone it out as best I could and wash, package and freeze it at this point. Otherwise it would go to Ma.

She would dump the whole works (bones and all) in a big pot of water with some cut up celery, and bring it to a boil. She would boil it until it was done and then cool it. ( not parboil) After it was cooled she would pick the meat off the bones. The largest pieces were the size of a small shrimp, the smallest she would keep were the size of a lima bean. If there was any sinew attached she would cut that off. The meat could then be refrigerated or frozen.

The way I really like it is deep fried. Ma would put the meat in a mixture of beaten egg with a little milk added. From there it went in a bag with bread crumbs and she coated the whole works. I haven’t tried it yet but I think the flavored “dusting†mixtures for fish would work very well in place of the bread crumbs. Then she would deep fry the pieces. It is important that you deep fry for a very short time. The object is to just fry until the pieces are hot and the coating does not burn. The meat has already been cooked so a long fry time is not needed. Drain on some paper towl and enjoy. Done this way turtle has a taste that is addictive. When people ask me what it tastes like I say, “turtleâ€.

As far as the “seven different meats in a turtle†thing, I think I might know what they mean. When you butcher a turtle you will see dark meat, red meat and white meat. I have never been able to see seven different ones but there is several to be sure. The darkest meat is the toughest and in a large piece can be a chore to chew. The white meat is the most tender. Fried in small pieces, even the tough meat is pretty easy to chew.

So, that is the way I would fix a turtle for you. I hope you are able to find one and try it. I think you will be surprised at how good they really are when cooked this way.

Jim

Excellent post, and I thank you for taking the time to share, Jim.

Very helpful and interesting stuff!

KG

Used to HUNT them in the local farm pond----frogs that is. Just shot---yes shot the biggest ones, some were bull frogs, but some on the others were just large. Sat on the bank with binox to spot them, then popped them in the head with a .22---great fun and good eating, we fried them!

Hip

Kamo Gari, when I was young I hunted bull frogs a lot with a spear gig, a grabber gig and a 22 rifle loaded with shorts. Fried bull frog legs are great eating but you have to skin them first.

I have never hunted turtles but I have caught many on a trot line. I have never eaten a snappin turtle. But I eaten Mississippi soft shell turtels and they are good eatin'. But don't ask me how to clean one.

Huntin’ alligator is ‘nother matter but they are good eatiin’.

I used to bowhunt deer with a buddy, we would stay on stand till 10 or 11, then stroll down the doad to an old, closed bridge. The little creek that ran under it always had a shallow pool FULL of leopard frogs.
We would shoot till we were out of arrows, then go collect our critters. They were small, and a pain to clean a mess, but fine eating, and a heck of a challenging target.

WAY more misses than hits!

Brother and I used to get quite a few bullfrogs
along the river in SW Nebraska. Like everyone
else we cleaned only the legs.

Later, when in the Army, I was sent to Thailand.
There, in a restaurant, they had bullfrogs on the
menu. I ordered them, thinking they meant just the
legs. Nope, it was the whole bullfrog, minus the
head, skin, and entrails. Guess what, the whole
frog is delicious!!