Fishing with Snakes

Posted on September 17th, 2006 mitch  Print 2 comments

Growing up in the wilds of Arkansas gave me a natural inclination towards fishing, and I took clear advantage of any opportunity that came along.

One Saturday, my Uncle Forest and I decided to take a trip out to my Uncle Emmett's ( his brother ) pond to try our luck. As with most fish and game, you need to get there early to catch them when they start feeding at the beginning of the day. This placed us at the pond around 6:30am or so.

This was not a huge deal of a pond, maybe three or four acres if you pushed it. Regardless, it had your typical dispersal of fish as found in most places in the Southern United States: bass, bream ( sunfish ), crappie, and catfish. Not after anything in particular, we usually hauled in just about anything that made the mistake of putting a hook in their mouth.

Uncle Emmett kept a Jon Boat on the bank that gave us easy access to the entire pond. You generally store your boat upside down to keep it from filling with water should it happen to rain. When Uncle Forest and I arrived, we flipped the boat over, loaded up our gear, and pushed off into the breaking dawn. I took the bow and Uncle Forest took the stern, both of us using wooden paddles for propulsion.

As I recall, there weren't a huge number of fish being caught that day, but the weather was mostly pleasant and the company was good. We fished the pond in a clockwise motion from our jumping off point and by 9:00am or so, we had reached the far side of the pond and were attempting to coax some bream from beneath the willows along the bank.

It was about that time that I happened to look down and found, much to my shock and surprise, a three-foot long water moccasin between my feet.

Now I don't care if you're from Arkansas or New York City, but having a water moccasin of any length between your feet is a bad thing. Very bad thing. And I tend to have very diverse and adverse reactions when I encounter a very bad thing. This occasion was no different. I can't exactly remember what happened next, but somehow I was standing amidships on the seat. I figure that either 1) I teleported there; or 2) I went Ninja and performed one of my patented triple-somersault-180-degree-turn maneuvers that I have since become famous for, but no longer do. Either way, I was now standing completely upright on the middle of the seat on a Jon boat in the middle of the pond. Uncle Forest, of course, had no idea what in the heck was happening; not having seen the snake, and not really seeing me move to the middle seat.

Still in my highly-excited state, I grabbed a paddle in each hand. Facing the bow, and bending my knees into a squat, I proceeded to play the part of steam-powered paddlewheel and rowed me, Uncle Forest, the boat, and the snake to shore as quickly as I freaking could.

And that was then end of our fishing expedition, for that day.

Oh, I guess you want to know what happened to the snake.

Well, as soon as I vacated the bow seat, he slithered underneath and remained there until we reached shore. It also happens that I have some type of pheromone that makes water moccasins are extremely allergic to me, and this one was no exception. Shortly after we beached, after being in my presence for what couldn't have been more than 10 minutes, he passed on to the afterlife. Poor thing.

But I bet in the next life, he thinks twice before attacking a Ninja, with a paddle, on a boat, in the middle of a lake.

And how did the snake get in the boat in the first place? Well, it turns out, he was there the whole time. He had been sleeping in the middle seat while the boat was upside down. Since snakes are cold-blooded, and since it was rather chilly that morning, he had remained as he fell, upside down on the floor of the boat. Young water moccasins have a yellow belly and that was what was upturned. My Uncle Forest had been looking at it all morning but thought it was a piece of rope and paid it no attention.

When the air temperature rose enough to warm up the snake, it "woke up" and decided, post haste, to leave the boat. Fortunately for us, but not for him, he came forward as opposed to moving aft. My Uncle, who was in his 60's at the time, would probably have had a heart attack or jumped out of the boat and things would have turned out much differently.

Tall Tales

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