Snakes

[the_donger]

The worst I have is when I catch them. Seems they are kinda partial to minnows and I use minnows a lot. Well, one day, after reeling one in and as I was trying to figure out how to get the sucker off my line without getting chomped, my dog snuck up behind me and decided to take a bite outta that snake's tail. As you can imagine, a bad situation got worse, as the snake did not like the idea of being bitten. That snake wriggled outta my grip and up my fishing pole towards my other hand. I never did find that fishing pole, as I think I set a new record for throwing the javelin that day. My dog still hates snakes and goes and barks at them while they are in the bushes until they make a dash for the water. She then stands and barks at them after they are long gone, having saved me again from the legless menace. She hates turtles too, but never cannot figure out how to get at them through the shell, so she just barks alot and does not get close, which is a good thing as I can see a very large vet bill if one got hold of her. I also catch alot of ducks. Not mallards or anything like that, these have beaks like regular birds and flaps on their feet (not webbing). They like biting, good thing they are not big or it would hurt. I am just waiting for the day I catch something with 4 legs like a raccoon or an opossum. That would #####...

[mperry]

These are all pretty good stories. I've never had anything like that happen to me. Pulled a fish basket that had a snake in it and no fish, seined up a few when I was trying to get bait. That kind of thing. Have been surprised a few times but nothing like what I'm reading.

[Devils Horse]

Fishing one spring day a few years ago, the wife was alternately reading a magazine and talking to me about imortant things while I was trying to fish. (Why do they always do that?) A good sized water snake comes swimming along, and foolishly I pointed him out to my wife. She is terrified of snakes.

I said "Hey watchis" and cast my crankbait out past him. She said something threatening to me, but I was already cranking. I jerked the crank right across his back, and he got confused and swam right toward the boat.

The snake swam approximately 6 inches toward the boat and she hit me from behind like a line backer. In a blind panic she tried to climb up me like I was a tree. As a staggered around the front deck, she reached the top of me and her knees/feet pounded into my lower back running at full speed. Meanwhile she was using my left ear for a handle, crushing my skull in a death grip, and screaming in a bloodcurdling fashion into my right ear. By the time the snake got alongside, I was taking a horrible beating. It felt like some folks had ganged up and were using me for batting practice.

My left hand was busy trying to keep my left ear atttached to my head, my right was waving my cranking rod around weakly. I summoned the last of my waning strength and gave him a swat with my fishing pole. He turned and swam away. The little woman climbed down off me, slapped my hard on the back, and went and sat in the passenger seat arms folded. Prolly would have hurt except my back was numb.

I stowed the trolling motor, checked my ear for bleeding, limped down and gingerly lowered my carcass into the drivr's seat. The wife stared straight ahead, puffed up something awful. I reached an exploratory hand over toward her knee and earned myself another slap on the arm for my trouble. After a while I said (paraphrasing here to keep the board clean) "dang baby, you just beat the flying crap out of 220 pound man, and you ain't 95 pounds soakin wet". She thawed out after a while, and we laughed about it.

My ears rung for an hour, and I was sore for days. Nowadays if she's with me and I see a snake, I do a quick 180 and stay real quiet about it.

[mperry]

I think I would have probably just jumped in with the snake and took my chances.

[185tracker]

blacksnakes...?copperheads...?? watersnakes....??? they are all COBRAS!!!!!! i hate snakes the only good snake is a dead snake!!!