I remember my dad talking about how good turtle soup was (USAF, spent some time in Okinawa, Taiwan, Vietnam, etc.
One day we were out riding 3 wheelers and a big old snapping turtle was crossing the old railroad bed we were on at the time. We got off the 3 wheelers, sort of surrounded the turtle and it would hiss at us. I got a stick and was going to push it out of the way and it grabbed the stick and would not let go. The saying around home is if a snapping turtle bites something it won't let go till it thunders.
Anyway, I had a sort of a box/container on the rack on the back of my Kawasaki. I picked the turtle up (it wouldn't let go of the stick) and put it in the box, got on the 3 wheeler and fired it up (we were on our way home but it was several miles).
Every little bit my brother in law would holler at me (the signal that the turtle climbing out of the box) and I'd jerk the handlebars back and forth and it would fall into the bottom of the box and we'd keep riding. Got home, grabbed another stick and the turtle bit it and I picked it up out of the box and put it in the garage.
I went inside, called my dad to tell him I had a good sized snapping turtle in the garage for him. His response? "I don't want that turtle, take it out in the woods and let it go." So I let it go in the woods out back of the garage.
I've seen (Gauley River and Coal River in WV) turtles in the water that looked like big round table tops. I waded up to with 3 or 4 feet of what I thought was a crumpled up rusted 50 gallon drum in the Coal River one day while bass fishing. I was standing there casting the spinner out into the current, glancing at the old smashed up drum and wondering where it came from and how long it had been in the water when I saw a big "foot." The foot turned in a big leg and the leg ran up to a big shell (what I thought was the crumpled up 50 gallon drum) and then I could see that big head and "beak". I think I set a record for getting out of the water and up that muddy river bank. I didn't even slip/fall. I went down river aways and waded back in to fish being more careful/observant of the river bottom around me.
Oh, not talking the top of the drum, the turtle was the whole crumpled/bent/smashed/rusted looking drum. Not the size of a new drum. But maybe half the drum. That head/eyes/beak still spook me when I think about how close I was.
