A tale of turtle terror

When we were kids, my cousins and I used to spend our summers on the family farm.  It consists of about 350 acres of corn and soybeans, and enough space to handle 13 kids without us blowing anything up, or burning anything down.  We did lots of hiking, fishing, trapping and four wheeling and one very memorable summer, turtle hunting. 

Yes...  I said turtle.  Green amphibian, covered in a shell, four retractable legs, and a giant maw that hisses.  For the record, the beasts I am referring to are snapping turtles.  These critters are mean, green biting machines that can take a finger off with one giant snap.  Also, they taste amazing when deep fried or when tossed in soup.  My momma once said if it didn't get her first she'd eat it.  I guess I took her advice.  Take it from me, turtle are goooood. 
 
So yeah.  Once upon a time I went turtle hunting.  For the uninitiated, turtle hunting consists of donning a pair of high boots, getting a group of folks together  -  armed with a golf club, and a shovel, and a burlap sack, and going tromping in the wilderness.  Then you look for turtle sign, which is usually an indent in the mud that's generally shaped like a circle.  You dig it up, and tadda!  hibernating snapping turtle.  Ripe for the burlap sacking.

Whelp - we found us some turtle sign, and dug it up.  You guessed it, there was one mean green turtle that wasn't that interested in being our dinner.  So I taunted it.  I mean, I stood in front of it as my cousins tried to get it to bite on the golf club and drag it in to the sack...

Actually what I mean is that when we dug up the turtle, it slowly started to crawl toward me hissing .  I bravely responded by rapidly trying to back away, convinced it was going to clamp its viscious maw down on my toenails, and splatted on my rear in the mud.  We are talking 6' tall brunette goes flopping on her butt in a mud puddle, not quite screeching in terror, but there is some serious foot kicking going on in the general direction of the turtle.  The cousins are laughing hysterically at this point, and I'm frantically trying to stand up to get away from the snapper, which must be a good six feet  away from me.  There is mud flying, and general screeching before I manage to stand up, and realize that the durn turtle is about three feet away from my feet.  Hysterical laughter ensued.  

There's nothing like sympathy from ones cousins, is there...