I was fishing a favorite lake here in the burbs of Atlanta in my float tube with a rope stringer tied to my float tube. I had several bluegills on the stringer when they become agitated. I pull up the stringer to find snapping turtle clamped onto the last fish. In another lake with a friend in our float tubes, we encountered a couple of "pond turtles" making baby turtle. They were huge, the largest pond turtles I have ever seen. The male (I' guessing here but judging from common animal behavior) was either irritated or attracted to my buddy's float tube and started swimming toward him, an advance my friend resisted by exiting the area.

Snakes on the section of the Chattahoochee River I fish are rare I have seen 2 in the last 20 years. I flushed one of the bank who headed across the river and looked like the cool water was going to sap his strength before he reached the other side. One day I was holding in place working a favorite spot when a group of Asian teenagers in yaks floated by. Behind them was what I thought was a rubber snake from it's lack of moment until it was past me and decided to swim to the bank. The coloration was similar to a copperhead, but I think it was a banded water snake, which is not venomous.