So I'm jigging some standing timber for crappie on Joe Pool this morning when I notice a snake that's nearly six feet long heading for my boat. As it gets closer I can tell by the look in his eyes that he wants to get in the dang boat! I tried to ease away from him with the trolling motor, but he keeps on coming.

I stopped and he comes right up to the back side of the boat and raises his head up. I pushed his head down with my 9-foot crappie rod. He goes under the boat, and I'm thinking "Great, he's gone."

So after cleaning out my drawers, I get back up on the trolling motor, plop down and plan to get back to fishing. When I look down on the other side of the boat, there he is again! Eyeballing a way to get on the boat! So I pushed him away with the rod again, and take off with the trolling motor. Now he starts following the boat. I mean there are trees everywhere, but this rascal is determined to get on the boat.

By now I'm starting to panic a little. I've got nothing to fight him off with except fishing poles and my bare hands, and I already know the fishing poles won't stop him!

So I go back to the back of the boat, where he's already raising his head up looking for a way to get on board. I crouched down and thought "Well, you probably have one chance to be real quick and grab him behind his head." And that's what I did!!

I knew without pictures it'd be hard to believe, so I took a few with our cell phone. Let me tell you, it's dang hard to hold a 6-foot snake in your left hand and take a picture with your right. So what you see aren't very well centered, but that's all I got.

I hauled him about 100 feet away, grabbed his tail end with my right hand and pitched him over by some other trees, and thank God he swam away from me. I took a quick pee and headed to the damn house!!!

Great story! Even though it appears to be non venomous I'm not sure many people would have handled it the way you did...

Glad i was not fishing with you today.

good story for the next campout lol

Yeah DLee, I wondered what you would've done. It's a wakeup call when you're down to fighting off wildlife with your bare hands!

I didn't think it was poisonous either, and normally I wouldn't go out of my way to kill something, but I think from now on I'm at least gonna carry a machete on the boat. I mean that thing was scaring the [censored] out of me because it was determined to get in the dang boat!

Wow, nice story Carl, and good work!

Should have fired up the big motor and made chop suey out of it.

Sure has some pretty markings

you didn't want to keep fishing?

LOL!! Nah, I was tired ;-)


Thanks Justin!

Thats why a machette is part of my boat gear, ever since a day on Marshal Creek that involved over twenty six snakes touching our boat at one time or another I always keep one around. But an ore works well too.

I usually have 40 cal Glock on board but I would hate to shoot a hole in the darn boat.

thats why i have a 45 longcolt / .410 tauras pistol, its a great snake charmer. i havnt had to use it yet on the boat as the ore seems to work fine on the none venomous ones. (smacking the water near em scares the little snake [censored] out of em) i dont have a problem with chicken / rat snakes. but i see a rattle, cotton mouth, or anything else, BOOM Headshot.

Im not to keen on snakes, I know some people are and i try for the most part to aviod them. They try and get on the boat, im done.

I agree with the ore and machete concept. But i'm curious. Has anyone ever LET them in the boat to see what they will do? Just wonder if anyone has any stories or just sat still and watched? Do they really want something?

I thought that it wanted to get on the deck and rest. But I also thought that it might crawl in a hole somewhere and I'd have hell getting it out without taking apart the boat.