waterfowlman wrote:Rick wrote:hudson wrote:yellow belly if it had been a snapping turtle all you would have gotten a pic of was a empty shellDeltaman wrote:hudson wrote:Lucky I'm at work with nowhere to put him
Hudson, is that a box turtle? Hard to tell from the pic. I've eaten gopher turtle and snapping turtle, but never thought about eating a box turtle.
"Yellow belly" there, "streaked head" 40 miles east and red ear most places. Ie: a dime store turtle that grew up and became supper. Never ate one but have known folks we were crazy for them - and particularly the undeveloped eggs in them.
When I first moved to the country here, I had a friend who lived largely off the marsh south of my place and would stop daily to visit the jug I kept for him because his bible banging Baptist wife wouldn't allow it. One day I was out in the yard when Harvey pulled up with something making a heck of a racket in the back of his truck. Turned out the bed was literally crawling with "streaked heads" he claimed he was going to eat. Knowing how much hassle it was to dress a snapper that actually had some meat on it, I chided Harvey that they couldn't possibly be worth the trouble of cleaning them.
And I swear his reply was, "It's no trouble at all, you just get yourself a slicker suit and a sledge..."
I'd sure like to hear some of the excuses you used to turn down dinner invites to his house.
Harvey was inclined to say things like, "A chicken hawk is a pretty bird once you get its feathers off." and to tell you how good something most folks thought nasty actually was - before he chunked it back over the side or chopped it up for bait. But he could dang sure cook, and if I had tried his streaked head gravy, I'd probably be singing its praises now.
Harvey eventually set a mighty high bar for oldest and ugliest playmate when one of our wealthy camp regulars hired him to go drive his boats, bait his turkeys, cook suppers for his cronies and generally pal around with he and his sons.
