18b. The foolish one

Another lake, another shore line, thirty years later and 250 miles south – “plop”.

I had been invited to the 4-H center as an educational speaker on visual illusions (no they’re not only interested in cows and chickens) and went early as the camp was located on the shore of Lay Lake. I figured I could do a “walkabout”, without getting arrested for trespassing, by claiming a) hey, I’m a guest speaker and b) I’m looking for snakes. The “I’m looking for snakes” declaration is, in and of itself, an almost guaranteed spontaneous invitation that elicits a smiling welcome of – and the wording is almost always the same –“you can have my share”.

The large banded water snake that had dropped into the lake had a number of things going for him that the Cove Lake monster did not. First, he had spotted me and was already on the move. Second, as the tree limb he’d been sunning on was far out over the water, he was about thirty feet from shore with some fairly stiff water plants filling the first fifteen. And third, we were talking cottonmouth territory so there were potential surprises for a walker in the water’s vegetation. The ‘Niagara Falls!! approach’ was not going to do it.

However, the Lay Lake water snake had some problems that the Cove Lake character did not –and they did not include me. In Cove Lake, the dangers-from-below for a big water snake amounted to snapping turtles (of which there were plenty). In Lay Lake, on the other hand, there were probably at least six types of fish to worry about, alligator snapping turtles to go along with the common snappers, and I would not have been entirely surprised if there were a few regular alligators around. From above, bass boats came flying by. Consequently I was probably the least of the snakes concerns.

In keeping with his strategic situation the snake swam a short distance parallel to the shore and went under. I knew what he was thinking…” If I make it to the bank I’ll just crawl up under the root fortified overhang and that bozo will never be the wiser”.

I had lost many a water snakes to shore line roots but usually in hot pursuit. In this case I was in a position to get where he was going, first! Figuring he would spend little time paralleling the shore, I moved along the bank in the direction he’d been headed and got down on both knees to facilitate a grab, right or left, over a length of around four feet.

“What a maroon”! Up he comes at the water line about a foot and a half to my left and into the pillow case he goes. He was about three and a half feet long and I took him home in order to taunt him some more.

I let him go in Shades Creek just above the 280 bridge where I’d seen another water snake doing a fair imitation of a young anaconda around a big brush jam; habitat wise he probably traded up – and I said to him as he swam away “age and treachery, age and treachery”.

ML
2/11/08