Snakes

[rudeZ20]

OK everyone else has shared theirs so I figure I would do the same. About 5 years ago a friend of mine and I were fishing the BBC circuit on Green. Had been fishing for about 4 hours and the only bait I had got bitten on was a little bity crankbait and I only had ONE of them in the boat. You can probably see where this is going. Casting up towards shore I cast a little hard and the bait goes about 5 feet up the bank. I give it a short jerk to get it off the rocks and low and behold I hook into a 4 foot copperhead. Now the delimea was I need that crankbait back and it is stuck about 6" up the tail of this snake. My buddy in the back of the boat, no offense Scott, was scared to death of snakes. While I'm reaching for the paddle my buddy is really curious as to what I'm doing. I told him I am getting my crankbait back. His response was something to the effect of "not while my ##### is in this boat your not". Well I reeled the snake up, it was hooked pretty good, 2 barbs in its butt. I am swinging this paddle with all my might and this snake just wont die, probably because 1 out of every 5 swings was actually making some sort of contact with the snake. Finally I get the one lucky strike needed and the snake goes limp. I set the snake down on the deck, by now Scott is hanging on to the motor cowlng, and I'll be darned if the **** thing doesn't come back to life. It is now the guy and gal in the boat about 40 yards away are laughing their butts off and I can hear them over the loud pounding of my heart. Did not take long for me to get a couple of good hits in and he went limp again. This time I hold the head of the snake with the paddle and proceed the chop the tail off, flip the rest of the dead carcass into the water, retrieve my crankbait, and request that my partner climb back in the boat before he breaks my motor cowling. Did not catch crap the rest of the day on my crankbait. Have fun and be careful. Marty

[Danny]

"""Did not catch crap the rest of the day on my crankbait."""

Guess you should not have killed that snake...LOL

Hey, I'm really not normally scared of snakes, we kept them as pets when I was growing up, but copperheads are something else. LOL

To that end, I was out target shooting with a couple of buddies back in the late 70's. I made my best ever shot that day. We were done, and were walking back toward our trucks, which was about a mile away, BTW, we were on their land. Anyway, one of my buddies yell "SNAKE!!!"

Well for some reason, I jumped about 3 feet in the air... I was much lighter back then and actually did have a verticle leap. So I spun around, and saw nothing... and said some choice words to my buddy about the "joke" and just trying to make me jump. He said no, really... his voice was shaking and he was pointing about 3 or 4 feet from me. I turned and looked, and there was about a 48 inch copperhead coming at me. Now my gun is a 357 mag, western style, and while I was able to aim and hit most of what I was shooting at, I never could draw and shoot well.

This is when I made my best shot. I stumbled backward about 2 steps as I drew my gun and shot. I hit the snake 3 inches behind the head.

I have never been able to duplicate that draw and shoot accuracy, and have no doubt that it was not my skill that made that shot. LOL

So, I can identify with the cop that shot up his boat, and all you others. I've just been lucky I guess.... no fish todate in the boat. I hope it stays that way.

Danny