Do turtles count?

The wife is very protective of her pond fish. She worries that turtles are gonna eat em all up. So yesterday she got her itty bitty Browning micro lever action 22 and sat on our dock and shot turtles. I really think she got em all. I’m sure the fish are relieved...

Lovely way to spend an afternoon......

Nothing wrong with that

Turtle tank hunting is always a good time.

Atta girl

Just a PSA, but turtles don't eat fish, besides snappers. They're basically the vultures of the fish world.

Sitting on a tailgate poppin turtles is right of passage. Good times right there.

They just don't count very high.

My grandma used to love shooting turtles.

I'd bet she didn't get them all ... I have spent countless hours on tank dams thinking I killed them all, just to come back a couple days later to see a bunch of heads. But it's a great pass time with a 22

Red ear sliders, most common tank turtle around here that I know of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OMsOnycWus

Been shooting those things almost 50 years....many a fine afternoon spent sinking turtles.....

Turtles eating fish? Have you ever seen a Turtle out-swim a fish?

Well, that is a good point about fish speed versus turtle speed. But, my wife says that turtles eat small fish (google says so).

Anyway, I like that she was slinging lead with her little peashooter and smiling.

There used to be a hilarious turtle-shootin' thread on here. I guess it might have gotten zapped. Can anyone find it. I've tried with no luck.

Turtles

I’d buy the beer for a fine turtle hunt

I’ve killed many a red ear slider in my day.

I don’t like snapping turtles but I hesitate to kill them because they get to live to such an old age

Two posts before yours.

I am not 100% this is a accurate story , but it Just may be.

I asked a older shooting acquaintance about somewhere in the area that I could go to shoot & learn the art of Long Distance 22LR Sub shooting. He did not know of anywhere close around the DFW area for 22 league shooting or matches. But if I ever get the chance to shoot a match called " Turtle 400" or "Texas Turtle shoot" something along those lines to do so and it would help my long distance 22 shooting.

He explained that the average pond was approx. 400 yards across - They would set the match up on one side and try to head shoot turtles for score also off logs was fair also. I have never seen this on a organized basis but this is Texas .

Living in an aquarium I'd eat whatever I got fed too lol.

I'm sure they're opportunistic, but they're not a detriment to your fish population. They are fun to shoot though.

I consider turtles to be beneficial . As said,they are the clean up crew of the pond. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them catch a fish. But, suppose they can and do.

No way I would shoot them.

We always thought they eat fish eggs any way I shoot them.

I remember once as a kid fishing my grandparents tanks near Brownwood. I had a stringer full of bass I was gonna cook up. I left them on the stringer to go eat lunch. I came right back to try to add to my stringer and the stringer was holding nothing but the heads of the fish I had put on there. The turtles found them and demolished them in a short amount of time. I have no problem paying some of their relatives back for my loss

Put a minnow under a bobber then drag it passed a turtle. They move a lot faster than you think. We thin them but don't try to kill'em all.

Turtles with a .22 is a blast, turtles with a 22-250 is even more fun, but more expensive. It's a great afternoon.

Try with a .17HMR

I have a .17HMR just for turtles!

Man its been tooooo long since if shot turtles in a pond with a 22.

I'm glad she had a good outing. That is a great way to spend time outside.

Same thing happened to my dad's trot-line when I was a kid. Bunch of decent catfish skeletons was about all that was left.

Also recall a video in elementary school of a turtle fishing. Turtle kept mouth open and wiggled his "tongue" that looked like a worm. Fish came to investigate and became lunch. I shoot em sometimes but you can't get em all.

Like most things in moderation they are good for the pond. They eat vegetation...if there are too many in a pond and they destroy the vegetation the fry hide in then yes they could lead to the death of your small fish but not because they eat them but because they leave no where for them to hide and they're eaten by other predators in the pond.

We were hunting turtles on a tank in Oklahoma many years ago. Sometimes shooting a bit flat and the bullets would zing, but no worries, we were in the middle of nothing. All was fun until we walked back toward the truck - windshield and drivers side window were shattered. Hard to explain to the insurance company.

This is why I have a turtle shooting tower blind on the dam of my tank. You get a lot more shooting down on them too.

Ya-know? That's all that counts

Aquatic prairie dogs

My earliest memory shooting was at turtles with a .22 rifle under a bridge with my uncle. (That stream not too long after that became Lake Conroe.) For years as a kid, I’d shoot turtles and rats in a bayou near my house with my first generation Crosman Powermaster 760. I grew out of that eventually so I don’t have the desire anymore...but squirrels and house sparrows eating at my bird feeders is a different thing. My 1200 FPS Gamo takes care of them.

Also used a .22 mag one time. It has a lot more punch on the turtle.

fish killers

Yep, my brother and I spent a morning thinning out the turtles on a pond last summer. In a few days they come floating up and you have an idea of the actual count.

.17HMR is perfect for turtles. His 6.5 Creedmoor was a bit much.

I still haven’t seen any more turtles in the pond. Maybe the wife and her tiny Browning lever gun got them all.

I bet just the mention of her name....has them scambling to the bottom right now.

I bet a case of toilet paper that more show up and she gets a lot more target practice....

Sounds like a good time. Personally on my tanks I have not been able to kill them all and I have tried. They seem to be very prolific in my neck of the woods. Unfortunately the real tank cleaners are cormorants and they are for some reason protected.

SSS...

According to a good friend’s biologist(real biologist)who had his fresh water shrimp annihilated, they are bears of the pond,

What about my real biology degree? Lol

I don't know much about turtles, but it's a myth about them being pond cleaners. You're worst threat to a pond is otters. And most people will never know they had otters, so they blame it on what they can see.

Yessir it is!

^ That dog dead or passed out? lol

A spotter, a shooter, and a napping dog. That’s about as good as it gets.

I can tell you for a fact, a good sized red ear slider will eat live fish. I have caught them on live sunfish on rod and reel. They can literally eat anything from apples to crickets to fish.

I have caught softshells on roostertails. And they can swin as fast as you can reel them away from them.

So it's not just the snappers. Red ear sliders are the worst ones. They are like feral hogs of the water. Fecund omnivores.

I've seen sliders eat fish that were on a stringer hanging on the dock, seen sliders eat young bull frogs, caught sliders fishing for crappie with minnows. I've even seen them eat cows! Slider will eat anything they can get in their mouth. It's about time to break out the 17 WSM and go on a Slider Slaughter.