Original subtitles

I've been watching a pretty big turtle

right out here in front of us, and he's

just floating on the surface.

I'm waiting for his head to go down.

I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to make

a run and a hand capture.

Now, the water is kind of deep right there.

His head just went down.

All right, I'm going to go for it.

I'm going to go for it. Go, go, go.

Oh, I got him!

Woo!

Definitely got him.

I had to swim to get him.

Look at that.

He isn't enormous, but he's a pretty good sized turtle.

And that's just going to have to be a real shot because--

And that's the turtle we caught earlier.

That's the turtle we caught earlier.

Nice grab, Coyote.

That was a whole lot of effort for a turtle.

Pfff.

Hello, again.

Ahh.

Since the dawn of mankind,

legends have always captivated us.

Yarns passed down from generation to generation,

stories that widen our eyes, bringing wonder

to the imagination that maybe, just maybe the tales that keep

us awake at night are true.

Blacklick Woods, located in Central Ohio,

is home to the oldest body of water in the metro

park district, Ashton Pond.

A deep forest sanctuary of dark water, thick plant

life, and rumors of dragons.

My captures of Cornelius have always been epic.

Bringing the attention of media, onlookers, and those

who say that they have seen a bigger turtle.

Karl Hassel is one of those people.

A soft spoken man who would define himself

as an amateur photographer.

However, the images he has captured of wildlife

are nothing short of professional.

I met Karl in 2010.

At the time, he was a stranger, a man with a camera

and a man with a story.

He told me the tale of a giant turtle,

a beast so massive it dwarfed the other turtles nearby.

And while I listened, I was doubtful

that a giant could live in such a small body of water.

He could sense my doubt.

And that's when he said that he had

the photographs to prove it.

He was probably this big.

His head came up out of the water,

and I swear that head was probably this big.

It was bigger than the turtles that were on the log.

Well, he actually came up out of the water

and literally climbed up on top of the one that I was

photographing sunning himself.

He was huge.

He was the biggest turtle I've ever seen.

And I've been photographing in here for quite a few years,

and I've never seen one that size.

COYOTE PETERSON Karl's tale

was not completely far fetched.

This was a man who has spent the better part of the past decade

photographing wildlife.

You would think he knows a big turtle when he sees one,

and I hoped that he was right.

The stage was set, and the only thing to do now

was capture the dragon.

Stump Beak, this is one of the most difficult turtles

to catch, period, in the United States.

I've caught him one other time.

This is now our fourth attempt coming

out to the pond in the morning to try to get this turtle.

And it gets frustrating.

You try and you try and you try, nothing tops Stump Beak.

He is the true legend here in Central Ohio.

And it's been raining all morning.

And sometimes it takes a storm to catch a monster.

All right, let's go get him.

The turtle we are after today is appropriately named Stump Beak.

His gnarled head, missing eye, an ancient stump-like

appearance camouflage him perfectly amidst the dense

foliage that lines the edges of the pond,

rendering him invisible, unless you know exactly

what you are looking for.

And the turtles are just waking up right now.

And the last thing we want to do is spook them

and cause them to go back down into the deep waters.

We want to let them get comfortable.

Let them start hunting.

Let them pay attention to what they're doing,

and then they won't be paying attention to me.

And then we got a shot at landing a really big dragon.

You can spend days walking back and forth across the dock

of Ashton Pond hoping for a dragon sighting,

only to ever catch your own reflection in the water below.

There are three distinct signs that I look for when targeting

a dragon, bubble trails, a carapace breaching the surface,

or a head sticking up.

It's so hard to spot these turtles

with all the vegetation that grows

along the sides of this pond.

Really what I rely on is the bubble trails.

The bubble trail is the definitive sign

that there is a snapping turtle moving through the environment.

It wasn't long before we had our first sighting

at the far side of the pond, the legend had surfaced.

Holy cow.

That's him, 100%.

And the way that I can always recognize Stump Beak is

that the front of his nose is kind of chomped off,

probably lost it when he was really young.

But he is definitely right back in the corner right now up

against that log.

All right, let's do it.

All right, we know right where Stump Beak is, toughest turtle

in Central Ohio to catch.

All right, I'm going in no matter what happens.

I'm going to approach him from the back side,

and hopefully he's there.

All right, go for it, man.

Wish me luck.

Good luck.

This is this moment that you live for right here.

Sneaking up in stealth mode, I hope to see a massive shadow

beneath the surface.

These animals are perfectly in tune with their environments

and can sense even the slightest disturbance in the water.

Stump Beak is smarter than you would think.

And at any sign of a potential threat,

this reptilian giant will quickly disappear

back into the murky darkness.

The water depth and clarity back there is perfect,

but he was already moved too far away from that log.

Did you see him come up? No.

Further out? Yeah, he came up further out.

He surfaced and then he saw me.

Exploring the ancient waters of Ashton Pond by kayak

was my first tactic to capturing this legend,

as I hope to find Stump Beak hunting near the surface.

Unfortunately, the dark coloration

of the water and its challenging depths

made the idea of leaping from the kayak to capture a turtle

pretty much impossible.

It was time to use a little patience and a more intelligent

approach, the stakeout.

Stakeout time.

Oh, the waiting game is sometimes the hardest part.

And this is the fourth time that we've spent hours out here

waiting for this turtle.

That's why they call it fishing, not catching.

What you're watching is the fourth attempt that we

took at filming this episode.

In total, nearly 50 hours were spent staring out at the water,

following bumble trails, visualizing the moment

when I would actually have a chance at landing this dragon.

Just have to keep waiting.

Everything about the environment

right now says this is the day to land Stump Beak.

Perfect temperature, air is still, overcast skies.

I think we're going to get him today.

On this particular day, we stayed on the dock

for six hours.

Watching and waiting.

Finally, we had him in our sights.

Without a doubt, 100%.

I'm looking at Stump Beak.

And I'm looking right into his eyes.

So right now, Mark and I are laying

on the dock at Ashton Pond.

We have eyes on Stump Beak.

Mark is laying down, watching the bubble trail.

He's just staring at us laughing, saying, come on,

Coyote, come out here, try to catch me off your kayak.

It's not going to happen.

Oh, this turtle is so hard to catch.

Before we knew it, the dragon was moving

straight toward the dock.

You see what I'm looking at right here?

Yep.

I think he's trying to hunt around there

or something is kicking up a lot of debris.

And he stopped.

We see his bubble trail.

He keeps coming up.

I think we actually stand a chance

of catching this turtle today.

This will be the biggest dragon you

have seen yet on Dragon Tales if we can land this monster.

We stayed low and out of sight.

Boom.

Bubbles.

The bubble trail inching ever closer,

a giant beneath the surface.

This was the moment we had been waiting for.

Oh, dude, is there a head up right there?

Straight out in front of us?

Looking down into the black water,

I saw an ominous shadow rising from the darkness.

And then, it happened.

Yeah!

I was over my head with my hands on the dragon.

Look at the size of that turtle.

Oh, my gosh.

This is him.

This is Stump Beak.

And that is how you leap from a dock to catch a dragon.

Look at the size of this tail.

Look at how big this turtle is.

Oh, my gosh, did you get that shot on camera?

Yeah.

Look at that face.

Oh, my gosh.

This is the turtle that we have been staking out for--

for hours now.

Look at the size of this turtle.

Look at that dragon.

My goodness.

Oh.

Almost took off my nose.

Wow.

OK.

This is the largest snapping turtle that

lives in this body of water.

And he is an absolute dragon.

One of the most prehistoric creatures

you are going to find in our metro parks.

Look at the size of this turtle.

That is a serious mud dragon right there.

Without question, the largest common snapping

turtle we have caught so far this season on Dragon Tales.

Hey, buddy, good to see you again.

Now, the reason that we called this turtle Stump Beak

is look at how the front of his face--

oh, geez, sorry to give your camera a little splasher.

He almost got my hand.

His nose is kind of stumped off.

And as you can see, he's got a messed up eye on that one side.

Makes him look old and gnarled.

There's no doubt about it.

This is one of the oldest turtles

that you're going to come across here

in the Columbus metro parks.

And he is truly the king of Ashton Pond.

Oh, my heart is racing so fast right now.

And nothing is crazier than jumping

off of a dock to grab on to a massive snapping turtle.

OK, I'm bringing him up. You ready?

Watch your camera.

Back it up a little bit.

Yeah, follow him up.

I'm going to go real slow so I do not take claws on the face.

Here we go.

You be real gentle with him.

Slowly let him walk down.

Oh. Here you go, buddy.

Walk on down.

Walk on down.

Is he coming towards you? Yeah.

OK.

Here we go. All right.

Is he up? Yeah.

Is he safe? OK.

Going to watch my fingers here. I'm coming up.

Watch your camera.

All right, I'm coming up.

Ready?

Yep.

Great.

He's coming right for me.

There he is.

Look at the size of that turtle.

My goodness.

It doesn't get much bigger than this.

Look at the size of that tail.

Unbelievable how big this common snapping turtle is.

I'm going to slowly turn him like this so you

can get a better look at him.

And there he is.

This is Stump Beak, ladies and gentlemen.

The largest common snapping turtle

that lives here in Ashton Pond.

A true legend, a true dragon, and probably one

of the most difficult captures we've had this entire year

on Dragon Tales.

We have spent four days staking out here, hours

alone this morning, watching this turtle's bubble trail,

seeing him surface, seeing him out on the far side of the pond

sticking that little head up in the air, going back down.

Finally, once Mark and I laid down on the dock,

he thought everybody was gone, his bubble trail came close.

I was able to see a shadow underwater,

jump, and now this beautiful common snapping turtle.

Look at how prehistoric that animal is.

Now, this turtle's, I'm guessing, just

beyond 50 pounds, which will give him title of largest

common snapping turtle caught so far

this season on Dragon Tales.

Look at how big he gets when he's up off of the ground.

Look at that, how they can completely push

their bodies up in the air.

He climbed right over the top of this dock

here and splashed right back down into the water.

But we're not going to let him do that yet because we're still

going to get some measurements, but look at how massive

this turtle is.

So cool to be this close to a turtle this big.

Look at how large his carapace is.

I mean, this is like a dome tank.

If you were to see this turtle out there floating

in the water, completely stretched out,

he's probably close to about 4 feet in length

from the tip of his tail to the tip of his nose

when his face is all the way stretched out.

I mean, his feet are as big as my hands.

His claws are like the claws of a grizzly bear.

He's just-- he's massive.

In the photographs that Karl provided us,

you could see that the back of the turtle's carapace

had these real distinct ridges right here.

Almost made it look like an alligator snapping turtle,

and then this very distinct square pattern in the middle,

like most snapping turtles have on their carapaces.

There's-- there's no doubt in my mind this is

the turtle that Karl and the other photographers

have been seeing here.

He's easily that big.

If there's a turtle out here that's

bigger than old Stump Beak, we certainly haven't seen it.

And it's been hard enough just to catch this one.

And this turtle is about as close as you will ever

get to the Loch Ness Monster.

There's no question about it, this turtle

is over 50 pounds, which means we are going to be using

our 100 pound scale today.

Come here, buddy.

In the bag.

OK, the moment of truth.

We're going to get Stump Beak's official weight.

Ready?

Here we go.

1, 2, 3.

Heavy?

Oh, yeah.

That is a back breaker right there.

All right, let's see.

54 pounds.

That is officially the largest common snapping turtle

we have caught this year on Dragon Tales.

An absolute monster.

My goodness.

All right, let's get him back out of the bag here.

Explain this process.

What?

Getting him back out of the bag? Yeah.

Well, back out of the bag is usually tougher

than getting him into the bag.

I just want to be as gentle as possible

and get the tail out first.

Like so.

And once he kind of feels that his hind limbs are out,

I can usually just coax him out.

OK, here we go. Ready?

I'm going to lift him up in the bag, should kind of just

drop off.

Here you go. Pull.

Watch your fingers.

There he is.

All right, buddy, out of the bag.

Out of the bag.

OK.

What a good looking boy.

All right, that wasn't too bad, was it?

At a whopping 54 pounds, Stump Beak

is officially the largest common snapping turtle

that we've caught so far this season on Dragon Tales.

Now, we know he isn't a world record.

So you guys know what that means.

The search continues.

To stake out, capture, and record old Stump Beak

was an incredible challenge.

Karl's encounter with the legend of Ashton Pond

and his photographs that backed up the tale

proved exactly what his eyes had seen.

An enormous common snapping turtle stalks the dark murky

waters of central Ohio.

Wow.

What an awesome capture.

The largest turtle that lives here in Ashton Pond.

And now my favorite part, the moment when we release

the dragons back into the wild.

All right, Stump Beak, you ready to head back out there and hunt

for some fish?

He says, let me back into the wild.

All right, here we go.

Ready?

This is the part that always scares me a little bit,

the moment I let him go.

Hopefully they don't turn back around and bite me.

Here we go.

1, 2, 3.

See you later, buddy.

Look at him.

Right there.

You see it?

That is a turnip-tailed gecko, the largest

gecko species in this area.

Got it.

Yes!

Got it!

Wow.

This one-- oh! Don't bite.

Don't bite.

Don't bite.

Bite my finger.

Bite my finger.

Oh, look at those teeth. What did you get?

Mark, you got here, too. Perfect timing.

I heard some commotion from the roof.

Yes!

What you are looking at there with those open jaws that just

chomped on my fingers is the turnip-tailed gecko,

the largest gecko species here in Costa Rica.

Now, we've had a little house geckos

all over our little lodge here and on these sheds.

And every night I've come out with my flashlight

looking for this species.

Look at how incredible that reptile is.

Mark, zoom in on its eyes there.

Looks just like the eyeball of a velociraptor.

Now, here's a little fact you may not know.

Stan Winston Studios, who did all the design work for Stephen

Spielberg's "Jurassic Park," actually

used gecko eyes as influence on the eye

design for the velociraptor.

Really? Yeah.

Look at that eyeball.

I mean, the vertical pupil, it's yellow.

All those little black lines running through it.

That is 100% a velociraptor eyeball right there.

Now, these geckos have a very--

Ow!

You bite me again.

That's OK.

Keep your focus on my finger and not on your tail.

Look at the tail of this lizard.

These lizards are capable of dropping their tails.

So let's say a predator comes into the environment

and tries to catch it, it only gets the tail.

It can detach the tail, allowing the lizard to escape.

And in this particular instance, it

looks like whenever the lizard last dropped its tail off,

two of them actually grew back.

Now, I have to be very, very gentle with this lizard.

And when I caught it, I needed to make sure that I caught it

by the body and not the tail.

This tail is very important because it's actually

a fat reserve for the lizard.

So if for some reason it runs out of bugs to eat,

then it can live off of those fat reserves

for quite some time.

Now, these lizards are insectivores, which means

that they're going after bugs.

Oh, I see you open up your mouth.

Moths, beetles, anything that is up here flying around

by these lights is fair game.

But let's look at its camouflage.

Look at that, it looks just like tree bark.

So if this lizard was up in the treetops,

there's no way that you would see it.

And the way that I was able to spot it--

watch this.

Look at that.

Right on the side of the building,

and it shows up pretty easily, doesn't it?

Oh, yeah, big contrast.

Now, it thought that it was camouflaged.

So it stayed completely still as I walked up.

And Mario, I honestly didn't think

that I was going to catch it because a lot

of these little house geckos that are out here,

as soon as they see a flashlight,

they skitter off up into the rafters.

But this one-- oh, look at that, you see that?

His pads-- he's actually holding onto the side of the building.

All right, we're going to bring you back over here

for a second.

And while we're on the topic of those pads,

let's take a look at this lizard's feet.

Oh, don't you bite me again.

I can see him starting to rear up.

I'm going to just bring his little hand out here.

Look at that.

Now, they have claws on the tips of their fingers,

but they also have split pads.

Those pads are unbelievably sticky.

And the back feet, look at that, they look just like leaves,

or ligands, and he is completely gripping onto my thumb.

Here, Mario, you're going to hold hands with this gecko.

Here, put your finger out there.

What's up, dude?

Give him a little high five. Can you feel that?

Whoa. Look at that.

It's like Velcro.

Yeah, completely sticks

to pretty much any surface.

This gecko can run right over glass.

Now, let's look at this real quick

since he's got his mouth open.

Can you see the color of that lizard's tongue?

Yeah, it looks like a dark blue, almost black.

It is.

That's one of the most unique features about this gecko.

It has a dark blue tongue.

Now, that tongue is very sticky.

So they can sit there and wait for their prey

to approach, open up their mouth,

and kind of like a toad

or a frog, that's

the noise that they make.

Well, I make that noise.

Wait, let's hear it one more time.

like that.

They stick that tongue onto a bug and then, boom,

right into those chompers.

And I will tell you, this lizard has quite the powerful punch

behind its bite.

Didn't break skin, but every time he nips me.

I'm like, ahh!

I can definitely feel it. All right.

Well, it's starting to rain.

I think it's about time to let the gecko go.

Yeah, definitely.

Well, how cool was this, though?

Right here behind our lodge on location,

and I managed to catch a two-tailed turnip-tailed gecko.

Try saying that 10 times fast.

No, thanks.

I'm Coyote Petersen.

Be brave.

Stay wild.

We'll see you on the next location.

All right, back to catching bugs.