Cove Lake State Park was a caldron of life where many moments unfolded. I was first taken there with Scott’s family in about the 5th grade to fish for bream. Cove Lake figured again and again in such outings, then school trips and finally as a place we could drive ourselves.
The indigenous northern banded water snakes were, for some unknown collection of reasons, numerous and especially big. I once saw one lollygagging next to the bank in the picnic area with a fair sized bullhead in its mouth (making the snake better than fair sized for a banded water snake). There was a rumor that dynamite had once been used to take care of the “snake problem”. If true, it didn’t work.
Water snakes are most easily caught in streams by finding them under rocks. Except for their foolish tendencies at night (to be out in the open chasing fish with almost total disregard for approaching flashlights), if the snake sees you first (typically falling off a bush limb into the water) it is adios muchacho. In the open water of a lake they are invulnerable – almost.
It is easy to always be prepared to transport a snake obtained under a non-herpetological auspice (say church picnic, high school class trip): simply bring a pillow case. Should said pillow case make the return trip too full to fit in a pocket no one ever asks why. In fact, fellow travelers usually tell new group members “Don’t ask”.
And so it was as I walked alone along the tree-lined edge of the lake just past the bridge. Floating in the water, with mostly only his head out, was a monster of a banded water snake…..about 15ft from shore. This was one of those moments that no one would believe without the snake; but I had no experience upon which to base an approach that stood any chance of success. So I developed the ‘Niagara Falls !! approach’ – “slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch”.
There are at least two barehanded lethal tricks you can play on flies resting on a surface.
The first one involves clapping your hands together allowing for a) the fly is faster than you are but, b) must go up – lead them. The second is more scientific. If you start shaking your hand about two feet above a resting fly he may not fly. Because motion detectors adapt to constant stimulation, you can slowly move your shaking hand closer and closer to the fly and he may not fly. If patient, you can end up in the unusual position of having your shaking hand six inches above the still resting fly. Then WHAM; they ain’t that fast.
I feel the water snake was likely deceived by my ever so slow approach since I ended up within lunging distance – and did so.
This banded water snake was huge, measuring around a half-inch over the record (51in.) as recorded by Roger Conant author of A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians (1958). I alerted Roger Conant to the breakthrough and he responded, as he never failed to do, with a typed letter on Philadelphia Zoological Garden stationary and his swooping, yet clear, signature. One of these correspondences hangs framed upon my wall still today.
In the event, the snake died. I mailed it to Roger Conant who found it slightly shorter than advertised but noted that he had once measured the same snake several times and had come up with several slightly different lengths. He did, however, note the interesting belly pattern markings which he had not observed in water snakes from its vicinity and would be pleased to add it to the institution’s collection. That’s “PLEASED” to add the snake I caught to the “COLLECTION”!! I myself was ecstatic to have Roger Conant as a pen pal. There were more snakes; there was only one Roger Conant.
ML
1/4/07
