Turtle time

That time of the year. Go offa work didn't get my boots off before I had a text saying they need turtles gone since they just stocked some fish.
Well lazy me hasn't been caring for nets probably and just about all but one has been dry rotted. So it's gonna be alot of needle work on my day off


But on the bright side I had some forsight to make some bait cages the other night and pick up bait so had that going for me .

But yeah got the one good one out in the water and decided to sit around and just watch since the pond was so small due to low water . Less then 30min I come back and there a small snapper , 10 maybe 15 lbs surfacing net to the net and trying to get in so hopefully by the time I go back to check it before work tonight I'll have him and a few others




Will say though 2x the number of small turtles in these ponds son in gonna have to order some netting and make some special traps just for them. They have a second pond I'm 90% sure is gonna be full of stink pots and small sliders

That's a cool skill to have Wolfie, how you make the netting is beyond me. I really like those bait boxes too! We have to wait till July 1st to get after them, good luck.

Enjoy!

Can you legally sell the sliders and stinkpots in your state? I used to make very good money selling turtles to pet stores, until Ohio outlawed it.

Keith

Wolf, when you put your trap out where in the trap is your bait cage, and how do you secure it? How much water do you have over your trap when it is in the water. What do you use for bait?

We have to wait until July as well in MN.

I've never cared much for the net style trap. I made my collapsible traps out of 2 inch X 4 inch mesh of galvanized wire. I bought a roll of 4 foot wire. Set they measure 4 foot long X 2 foot wide X 2 feet high. Easier to set and real easy to get a turtle out of. My favorite bait was sunfish carcasses.

I make sure my cages are as dead in the middle of the cage as possible and preferably a little closer to the opeinging of the throat then to the back. Keep it too fat to the back they will just spend most of there time back sticking their heads though the back of the net biting at it. Honestly if possible I do like my bait cage being half way out the water. Seems to get the oil slick out better. All my traps have a water bottle with about 15' of OD green 550 cord attached to them .I never wade out in the water with these. Just chuck them where I want from shore and hall them in with the line. Alot if times I just tie it off to a bunch of plants or something.more times then not my cage is sitting in the mud so I just leave the bottle sitting on the shore if there's no chance of rain.
As far as water I prefer to hav it covered completely except for the back 1/4. I want at least a few inches of breathing space between the top of the net and the water level.though it's not really need as turtles can just poke their h da up though the mesh I just feel it's a good practice. When. All my nets are rigged up right they actually have floats in the back quarter. It keeps the throat down in the water and keeps a bit of the back end up for that breathing room. Usually just use pool noodles and works great.
As far as bait my absolute favorite is skipjack. It's very oily and leaves a slick in the water the turtles can follow. Favorite thing to do is to set on the up with side of a pond in a slightly windy day and let the wind move the slick all down the pond. I've watched sometimes up to 15 sliders on the serfsce and bubble trails from snappers in the bottom moving up wind to the trap

Nope all of this is strictly catch and relocate. Tons of little swamps creeks and the like so it's no real big deal.

It took a good little while to learn lol. I honestly wanna do a real nice video showing how I do it but man it's not as simple as a+b=c there's alot of feel to making some of these nets

Cool trap. What do you do w the turtles? I know what a slider is what's a stink pot?

I have been making a lot of turtle traps this year. The demand for turtles must be up this year