YOU CAN CLICK ON THE PHOTOS TO ENLARGE THEM.I arrived at the pond today and looked down and what do you know! You turn your back and before you know it the kids have gone and moved their pals and girlfriends and who knows who in!
Neener neener neener Hotdog has a girlfriend!
She's smaller than he is and cute as she can be. She kept sliding around in the mud and after awhile I quit paying attention and then lost sight of her. I don't know if she left or was hiding in the mud. I fed Hotdog two fish today...
We had set out three lines last night with livers wrapped up in pantyhose to catch the creature from the black lagoon that lives down in the depths of the pond and we used 50 lb line. On one line the whole hook and all was gone...
The next line the hook was still there but the pantyhose was shredded (see photo).While I was at the pond this afternoon I saw the tree that the next line was tied to swinging around. I zipped on over there and pulled on the line and had a snapping turtle on the line :c( . It was the big one that I saw in the pond about a week ago that ran off when he saw me. Unfortunately he had swallowed the liver, pantyhose and even the hook so I cut the line about six inches from his mouth and I put him in a cooler. I'll release him in the reservoir tomorrow where he'll have plenty of room to live his life out and have as many fish and other turtles for company as he can possibly imagine. I always had my doubts about cutting a line and the hook "dissolving" but I have a turtle in my pond I've caught in the past and I cut a line on him a long time ago. He has a paint mark on his back and he's still in there apparently doing fine. I don't see any signs of the line coming from his mouth anymore either so I guess it may be true and some how they make it. I hate that they swallow the hooks though. I wish that big monster in there would go ahead and take the bait so I can take those lines out as I don't want to catch any more turtles...
Here is Mr. Snap - he's pretty big:
We put out more lines and after about an hour my Mother and Stepdad came over on their way home from Dr.'s appointments. We decided to go down to the pond and check the lines while they were here and dang if I didn't catch still another snapping turtle. This is not good but now that I have them I guess I should go ahead and relocate them as you can get too many really quickly in a small pond. It's kinda like the reverse of where the socks go when you put them in the dryer. They disappear one by one but snapping turtles seem to appear out of nowhere - one by one. My mother once told me, with a straight face, they get there through osmosis... As you can see, women who are fruitcakes run in my family...
Here is the second turtle I pulled out. I would have gotten a manicure if I knew I'd have my nails in a photo - I'm past due but the mud and pond scum kinda covers it up so I suppose I shouldn't worry...
He tried to bite me several times but I kept well out of the way of the jaws. He's kinda cute don't you think? Look at his adorable hands - you know they feel.. well.. cute! You kinda want to hold him and squish him up a bit but it's just not a good idea - not with that snapping jaw! I'll probably be sorry I didn't put him back in my pond but I have more.
Well, I hope I get the monster who's eating all my fish by tomorrow and not any more turtles. I don't know how many more I have in there but I don't want to take them all out. I know Rocky is still in there.
Until tomorrow!
