When I was probably 14 or 15 I was fishing a pond with a buddy one afternoon after getting off of work at our summer job. This pond is about 15 acres and at the north end, a road runs across it that leads back to a little neighborhood. We were probably 200 or 300 yards from the road fishing in a jon boat and all of a sudden we hear screaming from back towards the road. 3 black guys come running down the hill to the pond and 1 has a broomstick, 1 has a hoe, and 1 is just running with the other two.

From where we are we dont know what is going on but they're all sprinting and hollering. By the time they get down to the pond, they've got our full attention, but they dont know we are there. Then they make it down to the pond and they all circle around on the road and are swinging broomsticks and the hoe l. I still wasnt real sure what was going on but about that time one of them saw us. So then they started yelling for us to come help they had a turtle hemmed up.

I'd never seen a big alligator snapping turtle at that point in my life, and I certainly didn't know they were a delicacy to some folks. We pulled the boat on the bank and got out we could finally see the turtle and he was huge. By the time we got over there the turtle was basically bayed up and didn't have anywhere to go. When we got there the weaponless fella ran down and grabbed our paddle.

That is where thing turned south for the old turtle. The guy with our paddle got him to latch on to the paddle and the guy with the hoe went to work. I guess while all that was going on the guy with the broomstick took off for the truck. I never saw him leave, but the next thing I know he was backing the truck down the hill. He backed right up to the turtle, they chunked him in the back, and they took off like they had 10 gold bars in the back of that truck.

Knowing what I know now, it probably wasn't too strange, but that was pretty crazy the day it happened