BuckedUp Apparel and the beautiful BuckedUp Girls are on the road again – this time to the Kentucky Hunting, Fishing & ATV Expo August 14-15 at the Frankfort Convention Center in downtown Frankfort. The annual expo features all the newest hunting, fishing and ATV gear and we’ll be there to show off our latest and greatest men’s hunting clothes, women’s hunting clothes and kids’ hunting clothes.
We’re particularly looking forward to this trip for one reason – a loud and loony but loveable character know as the Turtleman of Kentucky. Since the age of seven, Ernie Brown, Jr. has wowed watchers with his bare-handed, adrenalin-jacked pursuit of Kentucky’s snapper turtles. He’s been known to be paid in gas money for his help in ridding the state’s farm ponds of snapping turtles that eat fish, baby ducks and eggs and bite kids, cattle and horses swimming or cooling off in the water.
Bare-handed turtle hunting is considered a rare and dying art, but the Turtleman is doing one heck of an entertaining job keeping it alive. He starts by running full-on into even the murkiest brown and green water. When he spots the tell-tale bubbles that tell him a turtle is lurking beneath the surface, he goes in hands first, sometimes fully submerging himself in waters that we’d rather stay clear of. After a minute or two, he’ll burst out of the water swinging his catch by the tail and letting out his signature “Indian rebel yell.”
“When you hear him holler with a rebel yell, Turtleman’s got another turtle by the tail,” goes a little ditty written for the man whose antics have racked up upwards of 3 million YouTube views.
“They think I’m crazy, but they can’t help but like me,” Turtleman says of his growing legion of fans. Though the thought of going mano a mano with a 40-pound snapper may seem a bit unnerving, Turtleman would have it no other way. He won’t use hooks or any other instrument that may cause harm and he encourages watchers to “respect the turtle.”
“I don’t kill it – I only catch it,” he says.
Hopefully, Turtleman will trade us a few of his “Snapperlicious” logo T shirts for some stylish BuckedUp hunting clothes. If you see him out at the expo, be sure to send him to the BuckedUp Apparel booth. And be sure to stop by yourself for the best looking hunting clothes available.
Ernie Brown, Jr. aka "Turtleman" and BuckedUp Apparel will be at the Kentucky Hunting, Fishing & ATV Expo August 14-15. www.turtle-man.com.