OT--It pays to be lucky

Jeff Reardon

Jeff Reardon

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A friend joined me yesterday to install some temperature monitors on a mid-coast Maine stream. I chivalrously volunteered to wet wade while he stayed high and dry with the camera and clipboard.

When I got downstream to our installation location, I saw what I was 100% certain was someone else's temperature data logger glued to a rock in a deep pool under an overhanging tree. I decided to investigate, so I reached down about 18 inches under the surface into the shadows and started exploring with my fingers. Sure enough, there was about an 18" boulder, with a much smaller hard object attached to it with some sort of squishy, soft epoxy.

At that point I wanted a better look, and had stirred up some mud, so I waited for the water to clear so I could investigate further. I didn't want to put our logger on top of a site someone else was already monitoring.

When the water cleared, I went in for another exploration. Sure enough, that soft epoxy went all the way around the smaller hard object, and attached it VERY firmly to the boulder, despite the fact that it was really soft and squishy. Grabbing onto the logger with my fist, I couldn't budge it even a bit. This clouded up the water again, so I waited for it to clear for a final check.

This time I was more careful and didn't cloud up the water when I muckled onto the logger to explore. And by now my eyes were adjusting to the shady light. As I explored, I noticed that there was a dime-sized dark spot on the logger, and then that there was a sort of diamond-shaped pattern on the boulder, and at that point a flash of insight invaded my dim reptilian brain and I realized that I had just spent five minutes harassing the "snapping" end of a large turtle which I was still holding by the mouth, with the eye staring out at me between thumb and index finger.

My partner says I screamed "like a girl", but I swear it was more a roar of testosterone-spiked aggression. I kept all my fingers, we prodded the turtle out of the way, and got the logger installed without further incident.

If you are going to be really dumb, you better be lucky!
 
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Glade you enjoyed yourself, unaware you were noodling a snapping turtle. I dunno about the screaming part though.


The melter of the BOF furnace, at the steel mill were I worked was a snapping turtle noodling pro. For him, after the stress, rigors and responsibility of the steel mill, noodling was relaxation. I doubt that they make men like that in this day and age.

I was good friends with his son, who was the bag man, so I got to see his catch on many occasions.

The man knew his stuff, and supplied local restaurants, bars and the county club for their Turtle Soup. He had all his fingers and never suffered a serious injury. I can't recall he ever wore waders while noodling, nor gloves of any kind. Just old work clothes and a ball cap.

Once they were in the bag, he would take them to his garage and put a large galvanized tub over them, weighted down with cement blocks. The large ones would move the tub all over the garage floor, prior to becoming the prime ingredient for Turtle Soup.

I can still see snapping turtle mouths firmly clamped down on thick tree limbs, long after their head was no longer a part of their body...

That was in the 60's & 70's. Today it would be some kind of adventure/reality show on a cable TV channel. Yawn.

It's much better in person, isn't it?
 
Close call there, no doubt it could have ended quite poorly. Great story with a happy ending.
 
That is a great story Jeff. I have to admit that when I started reading it, I was wondering if you were really finding what you thought, but then as it goes along you had me convinced, and you obviously had yourself convinced too.
 
I read it again, pretty funny, but I wonder what the turtles side of the story is?

"I'm just layin' around in the mud and some clown starts jerkin' on my head. Three times. I'm a pretty patient snapper so I didn't nail him, but WTF?"
 
I read it again, pretty funny, but I wonder what the turtles side of the story is?

"I'm just layin' around in the mud and some clown starts jerkin' on my head. Three times. I'm a pretty patient snapper so I didn't nail him, but WTF?"
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And there we have "the rest of the story". Too funny also.
 
This turtle REALLY wanted to be in that deep hole in the shade. After "the incident", the two of us prodded it out of there with sticks. We got no reaction from it whatsoever except repeated attempts to stay put, and to scramble back there whenever we budged it.

Eventually we got it 30 or 40 feet downstream and put in our logger. By the time we left, it was back in the hole, snuggled up next to it.
 
ok - so, I am not familiar with these loggers and their use

why did it need to be where the snapper was?
 
They record water temperature continuously, about 4 times per hour.
They can collect up to a year of data before they get downloaded. They need to go in a spot deep enough not be dewatered even in an extended drought, protected from being moved in flood flows, and where water is well mixed and not stratified. They also need to be close enough to an access point that we can carry in a heavy anchor, and either far enough from areas with heavy human traffic that they won't be disturbed, or well hidden. And they need to be in shade, as direct sunlight will warm up the housing the logger sits in and screw up the data.

In this case, it was a pretty small stream, and the number of deep shady spots out of the direct current was limited. No doubt the turtle liked it for the same reasons we did--and that pool with overhead cover probably held some fish, at least until the turtle showed up.
 
They record water temperature continuously, about 4 times per hour.
They can collect up to a year of data before they get downloaded. They need to go in a spot deep enough not be dewatered even in an extended drought, protected from being moved in flood flows, and where water is well mixed and not stratified. They also need to be close enough to an access point that we can carry in a heavy anchor, and either far enough from areas with heavy human traffic that they won't be disturbed, or well hidden. And they need to be in shade, as direct sunlight will warm up the housing the logger sits in and screw up the data.

In this case, it was a pretty small stream, and the number of deep shady spots out of the direct current was limited. No doubt the turtle liked it for the same reasons we did--and that pool with overhead cover probably held some fish, at least until the turtle showed up.

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thanks
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