Snakes & cougars

[Uncle Jesse]

Since snakes are relatively slow moving creatures I am not sure how they get so widely distrubuted around south. Mississippi has countless farm ponds from a fraction of an acre to 5 acres or so. Practically everyone one of them has snakes, lots of them cottonmouths. If there is a aluminum boat overturned on the banks, it's almost guaranteed to have a snake under it. Cottonmouths are not shy snakes, I had two leave separate spots opposite the point where I was slinging hardware and converge on the point, it was vacant when they arrived.

I go to church with a guy who is a native of Detroit, he formerly had a customer in the MS Delta. He’s a fun guy and responded well to the usually kidding a guys with a northern accent gets in the deep South. He listened to all the tells about snakes, snapping turtles, grabbling, etc. and took it for what he thought it was worth. They invited him to go catching bullfrogs. They did it by leaning way out the bow of the jon boat grabbing the frog and tossing it to their buddy in the back, who put it in a cooler. After watch a couple he decided to give it a try. He spotted his first frog, leaned out of the boat as far as he could reach, when he heard the crack of a .22 rifle behind him.

“What was THAT?”

“Well, I had to shot that snake on the limb above your head.”

He was done for the evening and I don’t think he has been frog hunting since. Married a Southern girls and has stayed down here however.

[Donald Nicolson]

I must say, you Americans can fish in 'interesting times', to misquote the Chinese.
The worst we have here in Scotland are the Rangers and Celtic Supporters
who are usually busy glaring at each other.
Barring the occasional irritable bulls, farmers etc.

[jimsnarocks]

"The worst we have here in Scotland are the Rangers and Celtic Supporters
who are usually busy glaring at each other."

Donald, What does Texas baseball fans and Boston basketball fans glaring at each other have to do with fishing in Scotland?
Sorry, I couldn't pass that up. Jim

[Donald Nicolson]

I shall re-phrase your question,
what has Texas and Boston to do with fitba' in Glasgow?

[Steven]

I shall re-phrase your question,
what has Texas and Boston to do with fitba' in Glasgow?

You mean soccer, right?

[Donald Nicolson]

Definitely not!! I mean fitba' or Association Football to the uncivilised.

[pittendrigh]

Since this thread somehow morphed into a tongue in cheek footballer discussion. What the hell.
I have a question about Auzzie rules football.

On USA TV, when ever they show a video clip of a score in Aussie football the white uniformed referee
turns on his heels and points his two fingers forward, from his hips, as if they were six guns.
And then the video always bleeps out the crowd noise. So that's my question. When the Aussie rules
ref is firing his forefinger six guns, from the side of his hips, what is it the crowd is yelling, that always
gets censored?

[Shadow]

Only seen a cougar twice .... however would be will to trade a few bears for a couple of snakes (no snakes up here)........

[Sirrom]

Why is this thread in Fly Tying?

[Gnu Bee Flyer]

I have run into rattlers up the local creeks all my life. Now a days there are less and less of them the paved roads are slowly decimating their numbers to where they are protected in all of British Columbia.

My first year at the Central Washington fish in I ran into two rattlers sunning themselves back a bit from the path along Rocky Ford Creek . I saw one more on the way home at sun lakes where you put your boat in. On the same trip Cary Moran (Linemender) and I were fishing Stan coffin lake from shore. We came upon a small point of land along the shoreline where only one person could cast so Cary walked out on it to try his luck. I stood about 50 feet away watching him cast. A movement near my left foot caught my eye. I looked down and there about 6 inches from my shoe was a smallish coiled red desert rattle snake. It was hardly moving in the almost freezing temperatures of early morning. I knew Cary wouldn't believe me so I called him over. He said and I quote. Holy &^%$# that's a coiled rattler. I said yep it is then slowly moved away. Just about then I spotted the second one about 6 feet from Cary and pointed it out. We left that place. About an hour later it was a bit warmer out and sunny we spotted a young park employee cleaning up garbage in the brush behind the public washrooms which were only 50 feet from where we saw the two rattlers so I warned Him that there were rattlers about in the brush he was wading through. He said where are they I've never seen one. So Cary and I took him to where we had seen them. No sooner did we get there than a fairly large rattler came busting out of the bush down the path heading for parts unknown. Apparently it was spooked by us. The Kid takes one look at that snake and runs the opposite way up the trail to the road, down the road to the forestry truck where he leaps onto the back of it refusing to come down. He told the older Employee who was obviously the boss that he wasn't cleaning up any more soda cans in the brush either. Cary and I about bust a gut laughing at him. The older fellow said that there is always a few snakes around the seep lakes, very very few people ever get bitten.

About the red desert rattler , neither Cary nor I had ever seen one so I looked it up. They are a copper color the live in the high desert of the US and although not common they are not endangered. They are considered non aggressive. The other two rattlers we saw that day including the one that scared the poop out of the kid were regular looking rattlers.

One of the reasons I tend to see more rattlers than most people is because I move really slowly purposely looking for them. I used to hunt them when I was a kid. For any we found we took to a nearby game farm for their snake display. We got paid $3.50 per snake regardless of its size.

One day while taking my family through the exhibits at the Okanagan game farm I spotted a large bull snake on one of the service roads. Bull snakes are constrictors and do not bite, however they look a whole lot like rattlers, most people can't tell the difference. Anyway I picked up this snake and walked over to where Ed Lacey the park manager/owner was giving a rattler demo. He had a large rattler in his hands and was standing amid about 20 rattlers of all different shapes and sizes He was explaining to about 40 people all the different things about the local snakes. I walked up to the fence with my snake waited for a break in his speech then I said Hi Ed, I found this on the road over there do you want it?
I held up the large bull snake. Well you'd have thought a bomb had gone off! Some lady screamed and most of the audience ran for their cars. Holy crap what a stampede. I looked over at Ed, He still had that big rattler in his hands and his large body was shaking with laughter which agitated the snake into letting off a really loud rattle. Anyone who had at first hesitated at the sight of the bull-snake now lit out for all they were worth. Ed, still laughing carefully put down the big snake and hopped over the enclosure fence. Ed was a really big man and quite an imposing presence I was just a teenager back then and was always a bit in awe of the man. I figured I was in big trouble expecting the worst. After all I had just run off about 40 customers of his. but instead or yelling at me like I thought He held out his hand and shook mine saying that was worth scaring off all those people and that it was one of the funniest things he'd ever seen.

Cougars I have seen but two, one in Princeton while I was fishing I just got a glimpse of it as it streaked across the road and the second was early one dawn at Cranbrook airport as I was doing the 5am weather observation. I felt something or somebody was watching me as I checked the temperatures. I turned around just in time to catch a glimpse of the cat going behind a windrow of plowed snow. As soon as My relief showed up at 7:30am I took the Airport manager over to where I saw the cat and from the tracks it looked like the cat had perhaps stalked me. I think it must have decided I was too big for it to handle and crept away. There had been a couple of similar reports in the area that winter. A fellow in Creston 50 miles away killed one with a shovel when it attacked him. He said the cat was very weak which is why he didn't get hurt in the battle. The snow depth that year had made hunting for the cats very hard and they had come into town looking for food. For the rest of that winter I carried a 30/30 out with me to the weather compound.

I've seen lots of black Bears probably about 20% of the time I go fishing in the high country. They almost always run like hell because its hunting country and they aren't stupid.