Had never even heard of "turtle soup" until I started trapping/reading everything I could get my hands on about turtle. To me there's only one way to cook turtle and that's a sauce piquante. (pic below)
I'm ready to eat some of your cookin bro! From what I can tell (in my 10 minutes of Googling since I posted that), Commanders and Brennan's still use real turtle (farm raised), but most restaurants are substituting everything from cow head to ground meat.
just browsing through this thread for the first time today.....I do not actively go try to catch turtles with lines and traps unless I am just getting rid of them in my pond but we do pick up a lot of snappers on the roads around here.....especially after big rains for some reason. Not sure if its bc they get to deep or what but after big rains we ride around and there will usually be snappers, common and gator, along the roads and sides of the ditches/canals/bayous etc. I assume its bc the water gets to deep for them to breath from the bottom but thats just a guess I really dont know why. Of course there are times when we ride all day and dont see any but there are also those days that we ride a couple hours and pick up a couple dozen. Over here we can only have 1 gator snapper per day at least 24 inches and 4 commons per day of at least 12 inches but usually have at least 3 or 4 of us riding around and if we are seeing a bunch of them it doesnt take but one phone call to get a little back-up in route to get the rest of them. Aint nothin ever been more fit to eat than some turtle stew, piquante or gravy.
Caught two common snappers today. One 7 lbs and the other 9lbs. Will take/post pics later. I have 6 so I'll try to get a group shot.
Dayum! I would love to live where you live. Are you in Arkansas? They can stay underwater long periods of time. I've read that alligator snapping turtles can also go up to a year without eating and not lose weight. Turtles like water so I guess when there's water they don't realize it will recede so explore the new boundaries. Kinda like a kid crawling out of an open door and out onto the street. shane, did I spell "recede" correctly?
nah i am out in the woods north of biloxi/ocean springs area. Lots of shallow creeks, branches, ditches, small bayous etc and they all have turtles in them. The way this area has changed there arent many of us left that still live mostly off the land so we are about the only crew that is doing things like catching snappers etc. plenty people still hunt and fish most do it just to say they do it and play at it a little.....hardly any actually survive off it primarily like we do. But even my family does is by choice bc we enjoy this lifestyle and want to keep it going. We all also have good regular jobs so can switch the more subdivision life any time we choose but I have no intention of going that route any time soon.
Ha nah I def wouldnt go that far. Still got plenty to learn. My great uncle and grandpaw before he passed taught me something new every garden we planted or time in the woods or on the water and I aint scratched the surface of what they could do.
TC I finally caught that got dam man-eat a you wanted. 60 lber. Tirk and Shane have pics. Shoot them a text. I would have to edit out faces to post and not going through all that.
