'Turtleman' Brown often duels with snapping jaws (Byron Crawford)

COURIER-JOURNAL (Louisville, Kentucky) 'Turtleman' Brown often duels with snapping jaws (Byron Crawford)
Australia gave us "Crocodile" Dundee. Marion County, Kentucky, has "Turtleman" Brown.
He prowls the snapping turtle triangle from Gravel Switch to Mackville to Ellisburg -- along the Marion, Boyle, Casey and Washington county lines -- often submerging in the muddy waters of farm ponds to wrestle snapping turtles to the surface by hand.
"Thirty-three is the most I ever got out of a pond in one day," said Brown, whose regular job is at a cooperage in Lebanon. "First, I stir up the pond and make it muddy … then I look for bubbles. You've got to have the bubbles, because if he quits bubbling, you've got to run into him, and you get bit that way."
Oh, yes, Ernie "Turtleman" Brown, 41, has been bitten -- about 17 times by his estimate -- but nearly always when he was putting turtles into a sack or taking them out.
A frightening exception was the day in a pond on a horse farm near Danville when a large snapper disappeared in the muddy water along a shallow bank. "Turtleman" had already caught a smaller turtle, but he took a seat on the edge of an overhang on the bank to watch for bubbles from the larger turtle.
"I was just sitting there and shhwamm! That thing hit me in the butt and out I come -- walking on water," Brown recalled. "I had one in my hand and one hanging on my butt that probably weighed about 20 pounds. The boy that was with me laughed so hard that he fell down. He said he'd never seen that technique before."
Although Brown eats a number of the turtles he catches, or shares their meat with friends, he releases many back into streams or other ponds. Common snapping turtles, which can grow to 45 pounds or more, feed on plants and animals -- including frogs and other amphibians, some species of fish and sometimes even waterfowl.
When the turtle populations reach nuisance levels in farm ponds, many farmers set chain or barrel traps, bait hooks on lines attached to floating jugs or use other methods to catch them.
"I believe in giving them a sporting chance," said Brown, who sometimes accepts donations for his efforts. "I always quit catching them until they get their eggs hatched, so they'll build back up."
After locating a bubble trail, he often feels for the turtle's shell with his feet underwater -- working one of his feet from the top of the shell to the front in the trailing direction of the bubbles, until he feels the turtle's head striking the sole of his shoe. Then he goes under water and grabs the tail.
Jeanne Penn Lane, owner of the historic Penn's Store near Gravel Switch, recently watched Brown remove 14 snapping turtles from her farm pond.
"He would dive under the water and be gone sometimes for a little while … and he'd come up with leaves and moss hanging on him -- and he'd have a turtle, or sometimes two," Lane said. "This went on for about two hours. I've never met anyone like him."

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