A hull full of turtles

Hey guys, figured i would post a somewhat odd pleasure of mine.

A few years ago i noticed that some of my favorite city/public ponds were being overrun by non-native invasive species of turtle, red ear slider and eastern painted turtle being the most common. I contacted dfg and found out that there was no limit on the take of these turtles. I also asked them if i could sell them and they said sure. A little more research lead me to the fact that these two invasive species are taking over habitat and killing off our native western pond turtle. 

So with that info. I made a snag rig and started snagging turtles. They have really thick scaly skin and it rarely penetrates. I have captured and found homes for over 100 invasive turtles in the last 3 years. I usually get $10 a piece for them on craigslist. The constant casting for them keeps my casting accuracy up and the price tag pays for my fishing trips! Help me keep these things out of our waterways guys!

Thats cool.  I used to catch red ears, big softshells, and occasional mean dinasour looking aligator snapping turtles.  Those snapping turles have long necks and you better watch your fingers or you may lose em.

Mean little bastards! Those are at the mill pond in Weaverville!

Very cool at the surface, but what happens when the average person gets tired of them and releases them back into the wild?  My guess is that's how they got there in the first place.  Sorry, not trying to crap on your post because it is REALLY cool; I'm just thinking out loud.

I went to a workshop by Galen Rathbun and David Germano couple years ago, two leading CA western pond turtle experts, and they claim the decline of wpt has been way overstated and turtle are thriving in most parts of the state and also that non-native turtles are not that big of a factor. I'd have to agree that since turtles are so long lived that they will be put back into the wild at some point when a kid grows up and likely in a new location. turtle soup?

A few of them were put there from unknowing pet owners but they reproduce like crazy. The few ponds that have them by me have been full of baby turtles until i started taking the big breeders out of there.

Since i am getting big turtles, the only people who really purchase them are people who have pins on their properties and the majority of these ponds don't connect with the sac drainage.

I dunno about turtle soup but there are alot if recipes online.

I still think its pretty awesome.  Any turtle taken out is still one less turtle in the environment.  Keep up the good work!

I think it's still a worthwhile cause, just maybe dispatching the turtles instead  which I could never do since I love turtles. I like frogs too but for some reason I no trouble with killing bullfrogs, go figure. It sounds like from the uc Davis work and my friend Laura's data introductions into the wild seem to be the persistence of red ears in the Sacramento River system. Maybe you could let people know of the potential threat when you sell them and ask them if they ever outgrow their turtle to call you for a free pick up or encourage them to pass it onto another owner and never to release it.

http://www.sacramentoriver.org/srcaf/library/file.php?file_id=Distribution_and_Abundance_of_Invasive_Red-Eared_Sliders_in_Sacramento_River_Basin_(2010).pdf

I am interested in knowing what the ratio of WPT you catch compared to the non-natives? 
I see lots of WPT at Amador but have never seen a non native there............

Would

I am interested in knowing what theratio of WPT you catch compared to the non-natives? 
I see lots of WPT at Amador but have never seen a non native there............

I rarely capture the WPT any longer because I can tell by the shape of the head which is which. I would say that in the majority of ponds that have sliders, it's easily 6:1. The sliders and painted have a far greater reproduction ratio though. I don't know why but they do. I watched certain ponds in my hometown of Anderson and used them as an experiment. If you have 5 or so large breeding females, the population will explode and easily triple within the first year. I took over 40 sliders out of maybe 6 acres of water in Anderson alone the first year i did this.

I think that the decline of WPT is significantly due to low numbers of anadromous fish. WPT are completely carnivorous. The invasive species of turtle with high impact are omnivorous. Anderson river park ponds used to be extremely healthy. The sac is right on the other side of a levee. There is 1 direct pipe in of sac water. The plant life used to be great. What I saw was that , the more WPT, the less plants. Less plants = less cover, less cover = harder for the solely carnivorous WPT to food other than carrion. Also, less plants= easier for otters to catch and eat fish, especially spawners, which in turn makes it even worse on the WPT. I have absolutely noticed a decline in WPT in Shasta County waters, probably by half of what it was in the 90's.

And certain lakes that seem to have a "high"population of WPT probably just have a normal population. I talked to a biologist that gets paid to eradicate non native turtles from Berryessa. Apparently they have/had a big problem with them there. I told him my method because he traps them, and the problem with that is that the occasional WPT would end up end a trap and drown. There is absolutely no mortality rate in the way i do it and i can easily obtain 5-10 turtles per hour. Plus, i target only the turtles I want to take. He said it was interesting but nothing ever came of it. It would probably put him out of a job.

That pretty cool GK , we used to fly fish for them cast over a branch or dangle a fly in front of thier face and they would snatch it always C&R. We have quite a few along the RR but the population seems pretty stable. Ill have to start IDing them.   You could always make Ukes 

DFG uses floating traps to keep the wpt from drowning. WPTs are much less active thanmEastern turtles, sliders, cooters, snappers, there is a hell of a lot less food out here, in the swamps on the east coast there is so much more biodiversity so the turtles just naturally become pigs.... So yes they will take over, and they do taste good, I've eaten many, but snappers were my fav....in a MD pond there are over a dozen specie, out here only one. Turtles rock!
This is Woody, a North American Wood Turtle, the reptile with the heaviest brain, even bigger than a rats brain and they can figure out mazes faster that a rat, it's like a dog in a lot of ways.....

Woodrow...

That pretty cool GK , we used to fly fish for them cast over a branch or dangle a fly in front of thier face and they would snatch it always C&R. We have quite a few along the RR but the population seems pretty stable. Ill have to start IDing them.   You could always make Ukes 

WOW! That's pretty rad! I have captured them with a shell length of 12 inches so that would be pretty sweet. I bet i could make a fairly sloppy one.