Water snakes

[quivira kid]

Well there I was, standing on some riprap catching bluegills. Every so often, I'd see a snake swim by... nothing too out of the ordinary. Then one that was easily 3 feet long swam OVER my fly line, and it got me thinking. What in the world would I do if I ever had one of those things latch on to a fly??? The water snakes we have around here aren't poisonous at all, but they are meaner than sin! I can't imagine they'd be very friendly with a leech in their mouth, either.

Anybody ever caught one on accident? On PURPOSE? What would you do... donate a fly to "the cause" or take it back from him?
Bullfrogs on poppers are fun, I just don't know about snakes!

[mnklagoon]

Caught a water moccasin on a fly. I got it off using a taurus judge handgun with 410 shells! Had a logger head turtle eat a pike fly that lotec gave me. We dont have pike but bass like them. I gave the turtle the fly they bite to take the hand!

[ol' blue]

I haven't caught one, but had one attack my line while I had a fish on, and another tried to attack the fish I was bringing in. You are right. They seem to have a nasty attitude, and the state fishing lakes are absolutely full of them.

[Uncle Jesse]

Water snakes in the south are considered poisonous until proven otherwise. I personally have never had a situation where I felt threatened but have had some close encounters. My late friend Pete White was no wimp, BAR man 82nd Airborne, WWII, 2 Purple Hearts. He told me years ago of crappie fishing with minnows on Wilson Lake of the TN River when a cottonmouth dropped into his aluminum semi-vee boat. He said, "I was 12 to 15 ft. off the bank and the next thing I knew I was standing there one the bank. Don't know how I got there, my feet weren't wet." But cottonmouths are nasty tempered, dangerous snakes who will not move out of your way. I had two swimming to the point I was standing on casting, when they got there I was gone as I did not have a proper weapon with me.

[Panman]

When I was a young fellow I was fishing a creek in Utah. I remember flipping the fly along side some grass and a watersnake came swimming/darting?? out and got hooked. I took a rock & dispatched the snake to reptile heaven and went back to fishing. However for the life of me I don't remember if the snake had the fly in the mouth or was foul hooked.

Tim

[tedshuck]

When I was about 10-12 years old, bait fishing with some friends in the Mississippi near Keokuk, IA, I caught a water moccasin. I just reeled it up to the tip top and kept it on the hook and beat it against the side of the boat until it was sufficiently subdued that we could cut the head off with a knife. I don't know that I would want to do this with a valuable fly rod, but with my old solid fiberglass Zebco, it was not a problem.

Ted

[Bluegill222]

I've had them nail bluegills and bullheads that I've had on the line, and I've had them take fish off a stringer. Even the non-poisonous types are probably best avoided as aquatic reptiles are notorious carriers of salmonella and other irksome bacteria.

[jszymczyk]

Water snakes are generally grumpy. Water Mocs are generally grumpy in addition to being venemous. I had a big Moc try to board my float tube one time on a pond in Alabama. I would have been violating the No-Wake zone in my float tube. I like snakes and reptiles in general, and don't like to kill any of them. It was absolutely amazing to me down in the deep armpit of the south, the pervasive attitude toward snakes--- kill on sight and there is nothing more to know. There are no Water Mocs less than 4 feet long, and no rattlesnakes less than 6 feet long, in fact most of them are 8 feet or longer, if you listen to the locals talk. By the time a few neighbors heard how someone had killed a 12 inch garter snake with a shovel, it had turned into a 7 foot diamondback killed with a shotgun while it was charging from across the field.

Anyhow, Mocs are the only snakes I ever really were concerned with while fishing, because there were a LOT of them around, and even more harmless but similar looking water snakes. Pretty easy to tell the difference, even from a distance, when you learn what to look for. Usually if you are seeing quite a few snakes, it means there is an abundance of food around, which means the waterway is in pretty good shape.

BTW, the vast majority of envenomations in the US every year happen as someone is trying to kill a snake.

[EdD]

Y'all be nice to the snakes. You can never tell which might have been an FAOLer who fell afoul of Miss Betty.

Ed

[James Smith]

I've had one 3 foot water snake grab a very small bluegill once and another time, I accidently hooked another one about the same size in the back when I tried to twitch my fly out of some weeds. Both times, the snakes were a bit irate, but I can't say that I really blame them. I actually really like reptiles and snakes do not usually bother me at all. I think the one exception was when I was wet wading fishing a beaver pond. I leaned back to sit on a fallen tree that ran parrellel to the bank. I would fish a while, then scoot my butt down 4 - 5 feet and fish some more. One time, I put my hand down to push off the log and placed it right on top of a very large coiled up snake that had been peacfully sunning itself. When I noticed that the log didn't feel quite right, it was a bit squishy and wiggling around, I looked down and the snake was flailing around trying to get away and strike at the big oaf (that would be me) that had just interupted his nap. That startled me a bit so I removed my hand pretty quickly. I continued on fishing, however, I was a lot more careful where I placed my hands and feet.

Jim Smith