Press ReleaseView print version Angler Hooks a Prehistoric
Surprise November 02, 2012 On October 12, 2012, Woody Bozeman
was fishing the Tallapoosa River for catfish just off the boat
ramp at Ft. Toulouse National Historic Park in Wetumpka, Ala. At
11:30 p.m., he noticed the tip of his rod begin to bend
slightly. In the 40 minutes that followed as he brought his
catch to the surface, Bozeman would be surprised by the creature
he’d hooked -- an 83-pound alligator snapping turtle. Not
wanting to cut his line and send the turtle back to the river
bottom with a hook in its mouth, Bozeman hauled the animal out
of the water, carefully avoiding its beak. Once in the boat, he
noticed the turtle had been tagged with a single metal screw
fastened to the upper-right section of its shell. “I figured
this turtle was part of a research project so I contacted the
Conservation Department to let them know what I’d caught,”
Bozeman said. According to Mark Sasser, Nongame Wildlife
Coordinator for the Alabama Division of Wildlif