The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1888-09-08
TURTLE HUNTING.
How the Big Kentucky Snappers
Are Caught.
Turtles Hunting on Their Own Account
How They Lie Low In the Mud and
Doxe and Pull Down the I'm
wary Duck.


A wild mallard drake, with curled
tail and four wives, was quietly taking
his breakfast in the bosom of his
family yesterday morning among the
weeds and willows on the west bank OF
the Licking River at the mouth of Bank
Lick Creek, Kenton County, Kentucky.
The ooze here is rich in worms, slugs
and tender shoots of aquatic vegetation.
and for a time the drake swung him
self on his axis and wobbled his tail in
the air while his beak was twittering
and sucking in the sludge under the
rivers surface, with considerable con-
centration. 1t was plain that he had
struck a soft snap and knew it.
Once, when he brought his head
above water to swallow slug and cart
a little largesse of gentle quacks into
his harem, something seemed to take
hold of his legs from below. He
quacked frantically and beat the water
with his wings. Then his wings and
his back and his head went under,
while his four wives excitedly lifted
themselves into the air and winged
their way into another county.
..Hnlx sranlr4at That sa.ast bs- n big
fellow" remarked French Henry, as
he rowed toward the spot where the
ducks had been feeding. Henry is a
woodsman of some repute in this lati-
tude, whose attention just now is turned
to the turtle harvest. With sixteen
foot skiff, couple of No. steel traps,
a fobert rifle carrying a p ball, long,
handled stable fork, which he dubbed
a SCOOP" and half dozen three-inch
hooks attached to as many strong sea
grass lines, he was out ON a turtle
hunt.
The river at this point is from twenty
to forty yards wide, and lips its way
over the bar Of clean sand and gravel
which time and spring freshets have
brought down the creek and anchored
here. Almost Immediately feathers
began to rise from a spot about three
yards out from shore, and the clear
water became tinged in that place with
bloody streak. As the skiff drew
near to the troubled point we could
clearly make out the form of turtle
anchored upon the sand about three
feet below the surface, and sheltered
from the force of the current by a
ledge of limestone His shell looked
about two feet long by foot and a
half in breadth. He held the body OF
the mallard under him while he tore
its body and breast with his hooked
jaws, working with the eagerness of a
vulture and much the same general
action, in his feast upon the warm body
of the drake, as that bird displays
when greedily tearing piece of car.
rion of which he expects shortly to be
dispossessed.
They will plant themselves in the
mud on the bottom Of the river neal
shore, those big fellows WILL" said
Henry, with their heads just peepine
out of their shells, and in the course o.
half an hour the current has busted
them with mud and leaves and bits o
drift, until a sunfish can't tell then
from rock to save his soul, and so h,
floats down that way, with one ey,
looking out for danger and the othel
for grub, and all at once something
darts out from that muddy rock ant
catches the sunfish by the side or tn
back of the head or the tail. 1t don
make any difference where it catche
him so long as it takes good mouth
full, because that thing that has dartet
out is swapping turtles head, ant
whatever it catches it keeps. Thcl
the turtle tucks the fish under him
Just as he has the mallard there, an,
tears and swallows like a hungry lion
He will eat catfish and snakes, an,
almost any thing that lives in water
and once saw one out in the meadow
catching grasshoppers. Straight goods
sure To see big turtle on land i
enough to make horse laugh. Thi
one lifted his head and his tail as hig
in the air as he could get them. an
then. raising himself on the tips of hi
toes, he struggled along for FEY
yards, when all at once his strengt
gave out and down he came kerplunl
Whenever grasshopper would ligf
within resoh q his head. out would 8