Turtles

As the water temperatures begin to gradually drop turtles spend more time sunning themselves on warm afternoons. On canoe trips and many freshwater fishing trips it Is not unusual to see many of them on various logs and rocks. We see mostly painted turtles which are small but once in a while a large snapping turtle is out where you can see it. I was guiding a couple of fishermen on Monday afternoon when we came on this good sized snapping turtle far up on a large rock. As you can see from the picture it was not a small project for him to get himself up there and I can’t imagine what the plan was for getting down.

Several years ago I was on a canoe trip when we came up on one about this size suspended on a tree limb in the water. Because it was so still and did not seem to notice all of us paddling up to his perch I assumed that it must be dead. But when I touched it with my paddle it came quickly to life and jumped into the water. This one raised its head and watched us go by but beyond watching it did not look even slightly concerned that we had disturbed its nap.