how do you guys cook them? I plan on running lines for them come summer.

Lol

What are you laughing at?

Up north everyone knows COOTER as the *V*

Lol wow, down south cooter means get the heck outta the way or get a gun

I am breaking and frying my next one. I made chowder out of my last 2. Good and tender but stringy.

Roll the turtle in flour and meal , brown it then place it in Dutch oven put about half inch water in bottom of Dutch over put in oven bake at three fifty . Bake till you can pull meat off the bone.
Another way to do it is put in crock pot till tender then fry it till brown Ksp dad

Me and a buddy and his father learned a hard lesson with turtle years ago. I'll never forget it: my buddy's dad wanted to make snapping turtle one time. So he put all kinds of work into this soup, but while he was cooking it me and his son kept telling him that it didn't smell right to us.

His dad just kept telling us that is was because we didn't know what was good...so finally dinner time rolls around and he starts dishing it out.

My buddy came up with what I thought was a good idea; he called their black lab in and put a small amount in her bowl. She wouldn't touch it! Even with some encouragement, she wouldn't go near it. So we (as respectfully as we could) declined and told him we were not going to eat it. (Looking back, I'm thankful we were in our late teens at the time, because if we were younger, he'd have made us eat it...) Of course he was ticked at us and probably, just out of wanting to prove a point to us - he went ahead and ate it.

About 6 hours later, we rushed him to the hospital and they pumped his stomach! Ever since then, I've always trusted my sense of smell.

I like to cook it in a sauce. Brown the meat, remove. Wilt onions, green onions, add a little water and some tomato sauce and put meat back in. Season with salt, cayenne pepper, garlic powder to taste, and then cook until tender.

Serve over rice

I like mine best in the crockpot, same stew I use with almost any meat.
Flour and brown meat then put in the crock pot with carrots celery onion garlic potatoes chicken stock and red wine. Cook all day. Any and all vegetables can be added peas corn rutabaga etc..

Ok. My question is...how do you kill and clean a turtle? I had snapper soup once and loved it! We frequently get big snappers when we are crabbing and I have been dying to cook one.

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I always cook mine like fish. Cube the meat, roll in flour, dredge in beer and milk mixture, roll in corn flakes crumbs. Fry.

As far as preparation. Boil water and put in a large pan or just boil in a large enough metal tub to dunk the turtle in. Cut off the head and hang by the tail to allow the blood to drain 10 min at least. Press the top and bottom shell together to "pump" the rest of the blood out. Dunk the turtle for 10 seconds in boiling or nearly boiling water to kill bacteria, and use a stiff bristled brush to scrub the outside and dunk again, before cutting the shell apart. Cut shell apart. There is a point on each side where the top and bottom connect. (plenty of YouTube videos show where). Then quarter the turtle and remove the skin from the legs and remove the meat from the shell. Wash meat and soak in salt water to finish pulling blood out.( Note if you put salt directly on the quarters they will try to run away. )