Mantis show and tell.

[lancaster1313]

The same sort of concept is applied with some turtle species. You have to hold snapping turtles and soft shell turtles by the shell near their rear legs to keep them from biting you, as they have really long necks. But they still have those sharp claws and powerful legs which can really do some damage.

When we had flooding after a hurricane, I made the mistake of grabbing a softshell turtle once, by the back end. <_< I won't be doing that a second time because I got sliced up pretty bad. Next time I want to relocate one of those, I will have to use a different technique, like shooing it with a stick or something. If that will even work. The stick shooing method doesn't seem to work on large alligator snappers. They are very stubborn! I went through a couple of sticks trying to move one of those off of a narrow mountain road. I still had to back my car out to someone's driveway and take another route. It took me about an hour to get home, when if it weren't for the huge road blocking turtle, I would have been there in 10 minutes. :lol: That was the biggest turtle I have ever seen, I was wondering how a huge rock got in the middle of the road, until I got close enough to see what it really was.

 

[dgerndt]

When we had flooding after a hurricane, I made the mistake of grabbing a softshell turtle once, by the back end. <_< I won't be doing that a second time because I got sliced up pretty bad. Next time I want to relocate one of those, I will have to use a different technique, like shooing it with a stick or something. If that will even work. The stick shooing method doesn't seem to work on large alligator snappers. They are very stubborn! I went through a couple of sticks trying to move one of those off of a narrow mountain road. I still had to back my car out to someone's driveway and take another route. It took me about an hour to get home, when if it weren't for the huge road blocking turtle, I would have been there in 10 minutes. :lol: That was the biggest turtle I have ever seen, I was wondering how a huge rock got in the middle of the road, until I got close enough to see what it really was.

:lol: LOL! Been there, done that! Well, except for the hurricane part since I live in Michigan. But those softshells can really hurt! They look like they have soft mouths, but they can do some major damage. Try a strong fishing net next time. Just scoop it up, and carry it to a better location. I have no idea how to deal with a giant alligator snapper, though. They're more aggressive than the common snappers we have here. I used to have a few small ones that lived in the pond in my backyard. I could pick them up and they would walk on my hands and even let me pet their heads! But it seems like the bigger they get, the more aggressive they are. My brother caught a HUGE one when we were fishing a few years ago, and he nearly bit my brother's fingers off. He calmed down a little bit the longer we were around him, though.

 

[lancaster1313]

Perhaps we could start an animal related injury topic on the "other discussions" forum. It would be interesting to compare stories, and there are probably plenty of forum members that have experience in those matters.

 

[dgerndt]

I would be up for that.

 

[PeterF]

My grandfather on my father's side and my great grandfather on my mother's side were both missing digits of fingers due to snapping turtle encounters while fisihng.