Originally Posted by
stripernut
a hard rap on the nose with a hammer will kill the turtle....give him about 5 minutes to stop the nervous twitching etc.
take a hatchet and cut the head off where the neck meets the back of the skull.
stick a water hose in the open "neck hole" hold the skin very tightly around the end of the water hose so as to "seal" it so no water / pressure can escape.
turn the water hose on full force and watch the turtle literally blow up like a baloon, hold the neck skin as tight as you can as long as you can , after a bout a minute the pressure will be so great it will blow the turtle out of your hand and water will go all over the place .....especially the place where your face is lol.
allow the turtle to sit expanded for a few minutes this will allow the skin to fully seperate from the meat.
lay the turtle on its back and take a sharp knife and begin cutting around the shell where the shell and the skin meet, there is a soft joint on each side between the front leg and the rear leg, wiht practice you will be able to easily spot this line and a knife will slide right through it.
after you have seperated the skin from the shell you will need to break the joint that attaches the skeleton to the shell, the front joing is found just inside the shell where the neck begins, the rear joint is located where the turtles hip joints come together inside the shell, both joints can be cut away with a hatchet.
at this point discard the shell and turn the turtle carcass over so the bottom of the turtle is on the chopping block, begin pulling each leg inside out from the skin, when you reach the toes whack it off with the hatchet .
pull the neck inside out the same way.
now what you do with the meat is up to you, personally i like to fillet the chunks of meat away from the bone and soak in salt water.
i fry it just as i would a piece of chicken in kentucky colonel.
i guess i forgot step one, when i catch turtles i keep them in a plastic 50 gallon drum filled half way with water and i add clean water evry couple of days for a couple of weeks, it is amazing how much moss/mud/scum is purged from the turtle doing this, the meat is much cleanrer and less muddy pond tasting.
this is for hard shell snapping turtles,never ate a soft shell so i dont really know anything about them.
i usually dont have a butchering session until i get 10 turtles, usualy takes about 30-45 minutes to do all 10 turtles using the above method, its easy just messy.