10-21-2010, 11:43 PM
I thought I would throw in my experience with these turtles. I have caught them all over the lake in the last 25 years and always just threw em back. Then I heard they were supposedly real good to eat. So I had caught a pretty good sized one about 18 inches in diameter and threw him in the cooler. When I got home he was dead from the cold ice chest. I didn't have any recipe I just started cutting. The shell was a real pain to remove. Once I removed the top of the shell I was shocked to see more guts inside than any fish I had ever cleaned. It seemed as if he had two of everything inside. The only real meat was his four legs and a little of meat attached to them. I fried it up and it was just OK in my opinion and not worth the hassle. I have ever since then always returned them to the water. I do remember several years ago on a camping trip just outside Callville it was early in the morning and my girlfriend was hollering she had a big fish and could'nt reel him in. So I grabbed the pole and fought this thing for a while and when we got it near the shore we were blown away by the size of this turtle. It was the size of a full size trash can lid. I am talking 30 inches in diameter. I just cut the line cuz this thing was a hissing and snapping and looked like it could easily take off a couple fingers
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