Strangest Hunting Method

How clean and green is that!!!

reminds me of my first "kill". I was maybe 10 or 12, and all I had to use was my trusty dusty Daisy Red Rider BB gun. I finally convinced my dad to take me "hunting" one evening up in the boondocks of SW Arkansas just outside of Alpine. It was twilight and we were rolling slowly along the gravel road when we spotted a rabbit sitting by the side of the road maybe 25 yards ahead. We stopped the car and I slowly creeped out and laid the gun across the hood of the car and took a bead on that rabbit. My dad I am sure never figured I'd do anything more than scare the rabbit to death, but I proved him wrong. I hit that rabbit right behind his ear and had a one shot kill with a BB gun (NOT a CO2 one nor a multi-pump one either.).

BTW, that rabbit tasted mighty good.....

How about someone to cook it?

BAB.

I used to have a bowling ball cannon. We just were hunting for big splashes. We got lots of entertainment from it until the coast guard took it away. We were dropping bowling balls into the middle of the Columbia river. The straighter it comes down the bigger the splash. We were always careful to make sure no one was near the target area. Well, some idiot in a really fast speed boat passed a barge on the far side from our viewing point. He had been idling the boat when he went out of our view. We put a ball about 75 yards in front of him and he drove threw the splash. He was very upset. He figured out where the source was and pulled his boat over to the bank near us and really yelled a lot. Since he was drinking, even as he yelled at us, we did not take him too serious. We did miss him by 75 yards and he was well above the boat speed limit when it happened. He must have made a phone call because the coast guard pulled up about 1/2 hour later and were even less happy. Their problem was we were littering the river with bowling balls. Apparently some bowling balls float and there had been complaints. Short story is they took my brass cannon and forgot to get my name. The cannon was mounted on a four wheeled short table. It was 13 inched outside diameter and 24 inched tall I had it set in a bed of sand. It was really heavy. I had a winched mounted inside the back of my suburban to get it back into the truck. Anyhow as the coastguards guys were trying to manuver it into their truck we left. I watched the paper for weeks to see how it would be written up. I never saw anything. I still have a golf ball cannon that uses M-80s for the power source. I have evidence that it will shoot a golf ball about two miles. There is no aiming it for accuracy unless what you want to shoot is within 50 ft.
It that distance it either goes thru what you are aiming at or it bounce rapidly back at you. Not fun.

When I was was much younger, I tried to hunt seagulls with retort bottle rockets. I scared a few but I don't think I ever actually hit one. I really hate seagulls.

Sounds like you were just about prepared for all out war...............perhaps you should have taken on the coast guard................you could have probably sunk them.

Hey SilvCrow Six pack holders work..................but not too efficiently, it only got one.

With bowling balls you run out of ammo in a hurry. Pounds of black powder are not cheap either. It did shoot amazingly quietly. With the same weight balls you could usually get back to back shots to land within a few feet of each other.

Blimey, TVP45 - what have you unleashed? Looks like everyone on CR4 is intent on wiping out anything that moves! OK, I've had some fun getting flies & wasps with a (very weedy) BB gun. Once shot a very irritating mouse with my brother's BSA .177. Also love fishing - to eat whenever possible. And had my share of road-kills (mostly accidental, no humans yet, and nothing bigger than a muntjac).

But grenades - AK47's - depth charges - cluster bombs - where does it stop? (or maybe it doesn't).

Guess I'll get ostracised now for being a wimp. Oh, well ...

I think it must be true. Civil engineers build targets, mechanical engineers build weapons and they seem to have this tendency from a very young age.

I shot my friends little brother with a Daisy BB gun. Caught him square in the butt at about 10 yards as he was running to the house to keep from being shot.

Years ago, during the building of the Tiwai Aluminium Smelter on a peninsula surrounded on 3 sides by seawater, in Southland, New Zealand, we were being pestered by seagulls while we sat outside to eat our lunches.

They were a real bother, unless you fed them, but that caused even more of the winged rats to arrive and look for food.

If they weren't fed, they would "bomb" us with droppings, and that wasn't pleasant either.

What we did, that fixed those feathery rats, was use lengths of nylon fishing line, and tie bacon rinds along the line at intervals of about 3 feet.

Then throw out the line, and watch the fun.

Seagulls would gobble down the line, amidst shrieks from other seagulls, then one or two would fly away, trailing other seagulls and more baits into the air.

After a few weeks of this, the seagulls stayed away, they had learned their lessons.

In case there are lovers of seagulls reading this, note that the birds were unharmed, because after several minutes they just regurgitated up the bacon rind, plus the knotted line, and that would be eagerly swallowed by another seagull.

Of course if you wanted to get permanently rid of the seagulls, just tether one end of the line, wear heavy gloves and carry a big stick, and reel them in, one after another.

Kind Regards....

Strange hunting methods

My brother and I used ¾ inch water pipe with a cap screwed on one end. A penny bunger was dropped down the open end followed very quickly by a marble. This would go through a sheet of corrugated roofing iron.

When hunting each other we used our gyings (a metal V with surgical rubber connected to it with raw hide slippeys and a leather sling pouch on the east coast of Australia they call them shangiis or catapults). The ammunition was cumquats and there was no argument about wether you were got or not. This was considered great training for Vietnam but they called it off two weeks before I was due to sail.

During the depression members of my family used rat traps. These were made of a slab of wood 3"x 6" (75mm x 150mm) and a spring loaded devise mounted on it. To this was added an eye hook to tie a line to and a staple was soldered to the swinging arm of the trap. It was baited with bread and floated out onto the lake. A swan or duck would peck at the bread and receive a staple into the back of the scull. This prevented too much flapping and squawking that might upset people or alert them to this potential food source in the middle of suburbia.

Let see

The Native American who baby sat me as a small child used a stick with a hole in the end with a leather thong trough it and bone hook on the end to catch trout.

Darryl used a M203 fishing after Grenada and got an article 15 for his fun.

If you tie a Fusee (water proof road flare) to a stick of dynamite with pencil lead (lead wire not quite thick as a pencil) and throw it in a fishing hole (deep) Looks cool don't know if it catches more fish.

Bowling balls were .25USD from goodwill and looked cool dropped from a plane into the Puget Sound. (Flour bombs for the high school)

AR19A submachine gun BB gun (60 BBs per sec.) is great AAA for Sea Gulls that steal bait. As for taste the sharks liked them. I usually eat what I kill but Flying Rats I make an exception.

Take a big piece of dry corn and drill a hole in it, then tie it on a stout trout pole. Now cast it into the chickens. Do Not Let Grandma Catch You!

A noose on a lighter fishing pole placed over a ground squirrel hole can be fun but once they realize they can't get away they may attack.

Oh ya Alka Seltzer work on Sea Gulls too. They "steal" them and can't get rid of the gas. Not pretty but the sharks don't seen to mind.

Used to hunt each other with 30lb bows and foofoo (Bird) arrows that have a 3/4 inch rubber cone for the blunt. Knock you down.

We were going to use 44 mags with no powder and shotgun primers using wax for bullets but in testing a wax lode went through a pair of jeans the back of a kitchen chair and through the jeans again we decided we were not wax proof.

Slug mines, Place a firecracker in front of a slug and let it get half way across and light the fuse. Run Forest run. Does piss off any girls close by.

Military grade M80s are silver with the fuse out the side, don't know if it's quite a quarter stick but when launching garbage cans use strong ones because they will come apart and give a poor performance if not.

Think I'll plead the 5th for the rest

Brad

Holy Moly!!

You sound like a seriously Bad Influence. I bet the neighborhood kids ADORE hanging around you, listening to stories & picking up dangerous ideas.

Big family of hillbillies, all in fun.

I also tell the kids live romance not adventure (easier on the body) and explain to learn the dynamics of a situation.

ie. don't make your own fuses because, of the irregular burn time, the 350 grains of black powder ignites to soon and it burns up your sleeve and pant leg singeing the hair from half your head. Oh ya that was me, black as midnight covered in a cloud black soot. The pain was bad enough I didn't sleep for 3 days.

Was a lot less people around. I wouldn't dream of making empty CO₂ cartridges into mortar rounds, or rocket propelled exploding crossbow bolts for fear of hitting someone.

Bangsite (Carbide from miners lamps)can make some interesting toys, but a can launched 50 foot in the air will take a chunk out of your thumb on the way up.

Glazing triangles in a shotgun don't give anything in a 30^o cone a chance. Load them wrong and your barrel will be trash or worse.

The military didn't have a clue what to do with me. Their loss.

Besides building is more satisfying that destroying things. Kind of like movies these days, the action/effects are great but with superficial plots/stories they are transient and don't make you a week later go wow that was a good plot.

With power comes responsibility. Don't teach that in school.

Brad

Heh-heh. You're one of the good guys, for sure. If I had kids, I'd let 'em hang around & listen to the stories - but I'd be listening, too, just so none of 'em got ahead of me!

Being from the south I must chime in. Many years ago I was invited on my first Rattle Snake hunt. So being the new guy I got to carry the rifle. A nice .22 marlin model 60 open sites. After a few 100 yards up the mountain, we came to our first snake (being pulled from under a log) after getting the snake to coil up and rattle, they asked me to take the shot, and make sure of a head shot (for safety). So I took aim and POW head shot. Feeling good about that shot we continued on our trek. And to shorten the story for time reasons, after about the 5th snake and 5th head shot I was feeling very good. But all stories have there down side, As we approached our last snake of the hunt , the senior member of our group pulled out his snub nose .22 turned his head in the opposite direction of the snake and fired. Hitting the snake in the head. It was at that time they told me the secret that the snakes were actually striking the bullets. They "felt" the heat and would strike the bullet. Needless to say it was fun the next year when the "new rookie" got the rifle.

My Gawd!!! what a blood thirsty lot we are!!

Still in my teens I made bows and arrows and shot frogs etc...

I've often wondered about taking my pet ferrets ferreting for rabbits, but the thought of getting up in the very early hours to go ferreting has always put me off.

John.

I haven't seen one in years, but there used to be street sweepers that had these huge drums lined with metal barbs about ten inches long, an eighth of an inch wide, and very thin, springy, steel, and sharp as anything on the working end. A few would come loose every time the streets were cleaned, and several of us hooligans would scour the gutters for 'em. By removing the innards from a ball-point pen and fastening a heavy-duty elastic band from the local bank at one end, we had a barrel we could target the things with. They were accurate to a few yards, and from ten feet could go entirely through a Sunday newspaper or a good sized phone book. Hell on bullfrogs, too! We always had (somehow) sense enough to not target each other. Don't know why; we shot at each other with everything else we had...

the target...

You want ugly noxious pest........................try this one.

Another imported pest........brought into the country to control the cane beetle.... still got the cane beetle..............and the cane toads.

Like EnvioMan's signature says, don't rely on man's good nature, he may not have one.

Actually I wouldn't call myself bloodthirsty so much as interested in high velocity disassembly. I like things that go BOOM.

Ahhhh yes now you're talking... I love loud bangs and associated destruction of a target!!

A year ago a local landmark was brought down by explosives as it had been announced over the radio many people jostled for a better view until they had to call it off for safety reasons.

They postponed it for a week and then planned it for a nice sunday afternoon with plenty od space for people to watch etc...

The explosives would usually have been dampened to stop the noise, but the Council decided to put on a show and add more 'goodness' to the explosives...

In the end instead of a muffled bang and the tower falling there was a HUGE BOOM and most of Dunstable was subjected to a massive explosive pressure wave with a few windows breaking etc...!!!

Good fun

Some skills I plan on adding to my reportoire at some point in my career:

Learn to design shaped charges.

Learn to design efficient rocket nozzles.

Learn to reload ammunition

Learn how to make smokeless powder

learn how to make explosive formed penetrators. (see #1)

When the Socialists take over, they'll have to pry the (boobytrapped) gun from my cold dead hands.

I too plan on standing firm, please allow me to add one more for you to study. Plunger type detonators for arrow tips. So far all of mine are to heavy, but the center fire caps seem to do very well so far. I just hate all that machining.

Might I suggest shotgun primers?

You wrote:-

You could try Ammonium Triiodide

That would not work I believe as Ammonium Triiodide does not generate any heat or flame, which is usually needed to make most explosives explode. All it does is to suddenly realese a puff of gas from the solid.......

If I remember correctly, it is one of the few cases where a solid evaporates suddenly, with no heat, into a gas.......!!

I used to make "land mines" for flies when at school, it blew their little heads right off when they tried to see what it was with their feelers, provided it was bone dry of course!!!

So I guess that is my best effort for "Strangest Hunting Method" Blog!!!!! I hunted house flies with Land mines when 11 years old!!!!!!!! WOW!!

Logix101, I'm not sure I am following your problem of the exploding arrow tips. Are you looking for a more sensitive ignition source so you don't have to hit bone or is that the only (primary) explosive devise payload ? The best suggestion I have "read" was the use of the standard large magnum pistol primers with a BB glued to it to help provide the point load in the middle at impact and the caving of the anvil inside the primer. The large primers fit the ID of the threaded end of the arrow nicely. The main bang was provided by filling the aluminum shaft (greater volume) or fiber glass shaft (nastier fibers flying about) with black powder. Smokeless doesnt provied the high burn ate for best results. That added mass helped increase the impact to cave in the primer but reduces speed. Proper aiming takes practice as always. JUST DON'T DROP ANY OUT OF THE TREESTAND! I think I will stay anonymous with this post, Big brothers must be watching this chat by now.... One Shot - Many Kills.

Back in the 80's when I was working demolition I came up with the idea to hunt pigeons with a blow gun. My blow gun was 18 inch piece of piano wire heated up and pushed into a one inch gum ball machine super ball for the dart. And a piece of 10 foot conduit (thin wall pipe) on a 1 inch ball valve hooked up to a 1 inch air hose on an industrial, portable compressor running 110 psi.

Break time was never the same. Nor the Foreman's metal hard hat we pined to a brick wall.

Had to be careful though, it would go right threw a 5/4 inch piece of plywood.

Brad

Even better would be a Tungsten TIG electrode, very dense, will keep it's kinetic energy much better.

We used to do the same thing with a length of copper pipe and nail darts. take a 2.5 inch nail and roll it in paper (to make a cone) and tape it. Insert the assy in the pipe and cut the paper cone to fit tight. Aim and blow real hard. I had my share of seagulls this way....

Next time we get a guest asking what his final year project should be.... I think I will point him to this thread and say take your pick of ways to marmalise pidgeons/squirrels/seagulls/etc...

John

When working at Shell Downstream computer center, in London in the 70's, a colleague (who should have known better to my mind) used to make a similar dart from a BIC Biro and a Hollerith punched card and fired them using a large wheeled CO2 extinguisher!! Using the expansion pipe as the bore of the gun.

He fired one over my head that stuck into a plastered brick wall, about a foot over my head (I was working), the head of the biro passed through the plaster and lodged in the brick!!!! It was difficult to remove from the wall......he was about 30 yards away....

He was a maniac!!! I threatened to knock his stupid head off if he tried that again ever!!!!

Sheeeesh....I would have done the same thing (the knocking head thingy). People do really stupid things sometimes...

We also tried the compressed air with a 3/4 inch pipe and a large dry-erase felt pen. Shot it at plywood board and the thing disintegrated into some (pretty cool) abstract art...

Reminds me of a "rocket scientist" (not really, he was actually dumber than a stump.) Mech tech I used to work with. He had a hydraulic hose off of his Jeep's power steering that had developed an internal bulge that was blocking the line. He didn't have the money to buy a new hose so he got the bright idea that he'd clear the blockage by inserting a drill bit into the hose and connecting a nitrogen bottle to the hose. he hit the valve and the drill bit shot across the shop and left a hole in the roof.

What a dumbarse.

Bulges in hydraulic lines usually show a weak spot on the tube wall, the opposite of a blockage, so he was doubly dumb!!! (instead of a double Blotch?)How could anything that big get in there in a hydraulic line, they are supposed to be almost clinically clean!!! More so with regard to particles even!!

Andy, this is the same guy that when he was informed that the chickens he had been keeping in a horse stall he was renting were being evicted, he brought them to work and not wanting to leave them to die of heatstroke in the hot Texas sun decided that the place to house them while he worked was our hydraulic assembly "clean" room. It took a WEEK to clean the room well enough to allow us to do assembly work in there again.

The bulge was due to a separation of the inner layer of the hose. He did not understand that the hose was about to fail catastrophically. He was too stupid to understand that.

He also had a habit of showing up for work stoned out of his gourd, but the big boss was a bit of a libertarian stoner himself and didn't believe in drug testing unless he was FORCED to.

I'm really not making this up, but a little town in Texas called "Megargel" has a "one armed dove hunt." It conjures up images of one-armed men trying to operate pump shotguns...Perhaps 15 men shring one fire arm?

Close...:

The 'One-Arm Dove Hunt' is an annual two-day attraction, held on the first weekend after Labor Day in the small town of Olney, Texas.

The attraction is a series of events designed for participation by persons who are missing all or parts of one upper limb (whether by amputation or birth), and bills itself as "Texas Most Unusual Event".

The Hunt is the creation of two local residents, Jack Northrup and Jack Bishop (a/k/a "The One-Armed Jacks"), both of whom have had a limb amputated at the shoulder. In 1972, while sitting at the local drugstore, in order to harass two eavesdropping strangers the Jacks loudly began discussing how they planned to go hunting with their muzzle-loaded shotguns and bolt-action rifles. The discussion was meant as a joke – either firearm would be next to impossible to operate with only one limb – but eventually the Jacks did hold an actual One-Arm Dove Hunt, attended by six Olney residents who had lost arms (mainly due to oilfield accidents) and others who had heard of the event through the grapevine.

The event grew quickly, spread only by word of mouth, so the Jacks expanded the event to two days and included events such as one-armed trap-shooting, one-arm horseshoes, cow-chip throwing, and a "10-cents a finger" breakfast on the day of the hunt. The primary purpose of the event, though, is for upper-limb amputees to exchange stories, find friendship and support, and swap tips for living with missing upper-limbs, as well as providing the small community an annual revenue-generating event.

You guys made me think of another goofy thing I did as a kid...like how to find earthworms when there wasn't a one on the surface of the ground. A cousin of mine decided we needed to go fishing that morning, and he got a wild hair to try juicing the ground with electricity. Man I didn't really want to be around, 'cause I just knew we were gonna get our own eggs fried,...but what he did was took an old zip cord from a discarded lamp,..had to be at least 6 feet long, took an old screwdriver that was about 12" long, skinned back the insulation on one end of the zip cord, wrapped the bare wire around the shaft of the screwdriver pretty tight, then got some sore finger tape, (thats all we could find in the "first aid kit"), wrapped the tape around the wire so it would "be safe". Then the next thing was to proceed to take the garden hose and let it run on the ground near the foundation of his house,..( his Dad is sitting inside watching TV, none the wiser,) let it run for a couple of minutes so his Dad wouldn't get too suspicious,...then inserted the screwdriver into the damp area, plugged it into an extension cord, then told me to "watch this"..I move off about 10 feet away 'cause I had no idea of what was gonna happen next,....and when he plugged it into the outlet,...I kid you not, it took about 15-20 seconds and out popped some squirming earthworms,...better than going around tossing discarded boards and the like, and hoping to find some worthy of the task of being bait!

Of course, during that "fry time" the lights sort of dimmed,...and out comes his Dad.

Aw,....memories....never tried that one again.

Now here's a nice photograph of a white pointer playing with a seal...............anyone care to change places with the seal.

I wonder if this little fella would eat carp..................probably not.

A case of, better to be the hunter than the hunted. He's a nasty little fishy.

I know one thing, shark is a very nice eating fish!!!!!!!!

Elastic bands and flies, do I need to say more?

It takes skill, it is dangerous to both hunted and hunter (have you ever had an elastic band break and hit you in your eye?) and the fly has a chance to get away which makes it exiting and fair. I have not ever hit one that survived it so it has to be called effective.

Lots of targets and lots of ammo that does not cost a lot so it is also cheap. Good fun for all.

"Good fun for all."

All but the flies, I'm thinking...

Tell me, do ye hunt for meat, or for trophies?

Both of course, I am a biker first and foremost.

Last summer, the flies were in full swing so I made a pea shooter that fired a bead! Attached to the bead (through the hole ) I had about 8m of fine fishing line so I could shoot from the sofa and retrieve the shot without getting up! Good sport when you get the hang of it! One of my next projects is a remote control (with web cam and joystick) pea shooter on the roof of the house so that when it's cat mating season on my patio I can give em what for, the noisy buggers! Sorry Del, but when it comes to my patio, All the cats in the village come sniffing round and it is me who has to look after the offspring! I hear you say 'why don't you newt them?' Well, they're not mine, they are strays who use my patio as a knocking shop and then leave the offspring behind! I've had up to 3 litters (12 kittens) roaming about the patio in the past! I don't like to kill them so if I can get the cats to fornicate elsewhere then it would be better! I am going to shoot them with raw lentils or some other round seed but the design is still in pipe dream mode so I have time till the rutting season!

Ferrel cats make a useful addition to any compost heap. This is there most beneficial use for the Australian environment.

Here on the coast, we get a lot of boat people from Africa who survive on cats and roadkill! They can get all the veg they need for free from the greenhouses but what's veg without a bit of meat! Like eating a bag of chips without curry sauce! You just don't do it!! Apparently, cat tastes like rabbit and I like rabbit Don't think I've ever tried cat but I have eaten in some dodgy joints!

Some years ago some bloke in Tassie "loved" cats that much he turned them into Davey Crockett hats!!!!!!!!

A buddy of mine once spotted a world-class feral hog on his family's property, which was an offense to him and was causing some property damage as well. Having neighbors who did not appreciate gunfire outside of deer season, he took it upon himself to determine the creature's movement pattern and locate one spot where its daily rounds took it below a nice tree branch. Hoisting himself onto the branch, he waited, Bowie knife between his teeth. When his prey passed below him, he launched himself onto its back and quickly slit its throat.

Now, that took some nerve! Hogs can be meaner'n rattlers on sandpaper, and a real big 'un often has tusks that rival the Asian elephant. Not to mention hooves sharp as that Bowie knife... What piques my curiosity is, if the hog was on HIS family's land, why does the neighbor's opinion count for spit?

Now THIS is a world class Feral Hog. Your buddy would not have survived his adventure if it was HOGZILLA.

Here Rorschach, perhaps he needs a playmate!!

Reading all these posts reminds me of an old joke:-

"You don't have to be mad to post here, but it sure helps a bunch!!!!"

In the mid fifties when going to high school a couple of mates and my self used to go shooting and reload our own ammunition for .303 rifles......One of the lads father used to run a brass foundry and gave us thousands of casings.

The trouble was with all that ammunition and not too much wild life to shoot. Boys will be boys................we would shoot the rafters out of partially constructed houses in the Adelaide hills..........the houses would be 200-300 metres away, trees, concrete stobie poles (power line pylons).

I am not sure where it came from but we had a Japanese luger which took 9mm ammo, you had to have a permit to obtain the ammo............I will not relate how we used to get the ammunition.

The three of us were sitting on the banks of the "River" Torrens (the "river" that "runs" through Adelaide) eating our lunch, an unwanted swan got rather agro trying to get at out sandwiches................he would not go away, so the lad that owned the luger pulled it out of his school bag and blew the swans head off, literally.

Shortly after I joined the RAN where we had to go to the butts and shoot at targets as in targets, I suppose it was better being in the RAN than in jail, where I probably would have ended up if I hadn't decided to serve Her Majesty.

When I was about 10 years old my dad took me fishing with a long time family friend named Chuck. We rented a small aluminum boat and set out that early morning preparing for the tales we would tell the women folk at supper time. About mid-morning my dad had cast a jig and was startled when his rod literally bent in half. Needless to say he had hooked a monster and this monster wanted desperately to stay under the boat. My dad fought him hard for at least 15 minutes, the excitement growing by the minute, it just had to be a record, whatever it was, as we were fishing a tiny, out of the way Michigan lake. My dads heart must have been racing, and my eyes must have been as big as saucers anticipating the sure to be trophy that hopefully would soon be in the boat. With a final mighty pull of the rod the beast surfaced, I was shocked, stunned, a big, round tire rim covered in moss and weeds, no way?!!? And then... IT MOVED!!! Now remember, I was only ten, but it was the biggest, nastiest, meanest snapping turtle I have ever seen to this day, live or in pictures. It must have been over 35lbs. Well, when we all finally realized this twist of fate, visions of turtle soup simmering away must have entered my father's mind. "Grab an oar and lift him in" my dad said to Chuck... BIG MISTAKE!!! Now picture this, two grown men, one at least 280lbs, and a boy at one end of a very small boat and a very, VERY unhappy, biting, snapping turtle looking down at us at the other. Without even taking a vote on the best course of action my dad grabbed the oar and with much effort finally managed to flip the beast back into the lake and down into the depths where it still might be lurking to this day.

Even a little 10-pound snapper has an astonishing ability to pull on the line - been there, done that. And they go DOWN! A friend, back when we were teenagers, caught a nice one, and he and another guy thought they'd figured how to get it home, letting it bite onto the bamboo ("cane") pole maybe a foot from the butt end. They'd carry it, with enough clearance that its claws couldn't reach them, and let it "hold on" for the ride. The pole was a LOT shorter when they got to the house, and each segment of the trip was shorter because the bamboo was thinner where the turtle clamped down, and it would bite through quicker. But, they got to the house, and put it into a washtub, with a piece of plywood over the top, and a cinder block for weight. Next morning, the tub was laying on its side, block and board beside it, and there were tracks leading away. I suppose that if they'd had half-a-dozen blocks, they'd have had turtle soup that night . . . but it got away, except for a photograph of it in the tub.

Trouble is, of all the turtles in the world, the snapper (alligator snapping turtle) has got to be the LEAST edible of them all. They smell so bad when you clean them, I much doubt even my Cajun cousins would bother. Especially not if there was a good muskrat or nutria available...

You could probably put them in the same category as the European carp?????

Yes, and just think how big he is NOW - they never stop growing until they die...

Has no else tired this ?? This comes from my youth and my older brothers madness.. They used to take glow in the dark super balls, insert the eyelet end of long fishing hooks into the balls so the hook was exposed. Get the ball glowing nicely and right at dusk when the bats were flying about doing their baty thing, toss the ball up in the air. Bats are good fly ball catchers...