Not too bad....I just want my daughter and wife to try it. I could make a skunk's @$$ taste good so I think a snake will not be a problem.

Huh? Well let me know how it turns out. I would try it but my past experience has been rattler is good to eat, bushmasters in Panama were good to eat and don't get me started on Iguana wow. Any other snake I have tried well um just let me say in your words skunk's @$$ about covers it,

Where do you fish at on Joe Pool? I live right by the lake. I mainly crappie fish.

barndoor

Well I have tried by the bridge and have been told that is good. Nothing!

I have tied the jetty by the marina and Nothing!

I tried the damn rip rap Monday and NOTHING but a small channel that fined me when I let em go.

Now this is all chasing Catfish.

Thanks to Howell Dodd I have several humps that I can catch Sandies in well enough. During the spring I slam sandies in the marina during the evening.

But NO CATFISH. I think I could do ok on Crappie around the brush piles but never tried.

The catfish thing is just plain fustrating! I am pretty good a catching them elsewhere but damn it Joe Pool is close to home and the state put over 3/4s of a MILLION channels in there in the 80s. I know they are there.

One nice fellow sent me some GPS cordinates for pulling them off the dam so I am going to try that today. Apparantly I was way to close to the intake when I tried it on my own.

Any help is appreciated. Because I am sure just as soon as I figure out how to pull them off the dam they will be gone to deeper water for the rest of the year,

I've had many snakes as pets over the years, and the best one I've had so far was a coachwhip over 5 feet long. He was a beautiful gray and was just as nice as could be. He may have been the exception, but he was a good snake.

I've had a yellow bellied racer too. He was small, but his attitude wasn't. As long as I was holding him, he was biting me. Good thing he wasn't very big.

Herpi...what?

herpetologist

n : a zoologist who studies reptiles and amphibians

A bull snake has a "coon tail." The snake is a blotched water snake. I am 100% sure of that. Completely harmless. Here is a link to a bull snake to compare.
http://snrs.unl.edu/herpneb/snake/BullSnake.html

I agree they come in all paterns, but find one which has a patternless tail. The picture of the blotched water snake you posted confirms it for me. This snake is dark and about to shed soon. Its eye are clear still, but the pattern is almost exactly the same. The second row of spots and the irregular shaped dorsal blotches are the same. The head is flattened too. The bulls have a sloped nose for digging out rodents and burrowing. I am not trying to sound pompous, but I am a graduate student in biology and snakes are my specialty. I will forward this thread to my herp professor.

I think that the thing that I find so funny about all this bullsnake talk is this: yeah they are great snakes I agree and for those on the other side of the fence, if it by some chance bites you then what? You go inside throw some rubbing alcohol and a band aid on the bite and presto--you have a really cool "war wound" to show all your snake killing friends. There would be alot more venom in a wasp sting or ant bite than in a bull snake bite--yeah maybe a little infection risk but hey like I said, a little alcohol would do the trick -- you get the snake drunk and then hes as docile as a....ummm...drunk snake, i dunno:) If you fish at all you learn to live with the snakes. I have been places that had a bunch of snakes and I knew that they were there but all I had to do is ask myself, can I call myself a true bass fisherman if that snake keeps me from my fish:) Now, I am not a big fan of the venomous variety(especially when kids are in the area) but snakes as a whole are fine, you treat them with respect and they won't bother you. Now as for me, this snake talk is great and all but I have some more bass to catch and I am sure that I will see some snakes tonight---no biggie, I still catch my fish and he doesn't bother me. I need to go catch a fish or two! See ya!

I tell you what, you guys who carry on about not killing snakes are a bunch of pompous, holier-than-thou bufoons, most of whom have extreme difficulty spelling. I'm mostly in agreement with the idea that unless something is good to eat or dangerous, there aren't many reasons to kill it.

That being said, some snakes ARE dangerous. True, the majority are not, and, in fact, most who get themselves killed aren't dangerous. However, it is a well known fact that some snakes are dangerous, with a few being dangerous to a life-threatening degree, especially to children. Therefore, I hold it against no man who finds a snake on his property if he wants to kill it.

It's ridiculous to expect everyone to memorize fully and comprehensively the distinctive markings and traits of the regional poisonous snakes versus non-poisonous snakes. It's even more ridiculous to expect someone without that knowledge (and who doesn't want to expose themselves or their loved ones, or heck, even a family pet, to danger) to run inside and do a google search or whip out their handy Snake Identification book (note: heavy sarcasm here, as no one has a book of that sort at hand) in order to make sure they're not engaging in a case of mistaken identity.

I tell you this, Jack and your crew, you will win precious few converts to your cause by talking down to everyone like you have here. I haven't read the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People," but I'm certain that belittling folks and trying to shame them or make them feel ignorant/stupid is one of the all-time worst methods for trying to bring someone to your point of view.

If you have a thing for snakes and don't want them killed, fine. Don't expect everyone else to share your passion. Don't expect everyone else to go to abnormal lengths to properly ID a snake before killing it. And, most importantly, don't talk down to other people like you're some enlightened aristocrat of nature preaching from your alabaster podium to the peasant masses.

And in response to your query, you stipulated that you needed a good reason to kill the snake AFTER it had been determined that it is harmless. Well, my rebuttal is that it's unrealistic and foolish to expect that every encounter with a snake will involve prompt and certain indentification. The reality is, the only reason that exists to kill a harmless snake is that someone just plain wanted to kill it. Even then, you shouldn't get your panties in a wad. The snake isn't endangered, it isn't a sentient being with a soul, and it's family won't miss it when it doesn't return home, so pipe down.

And if you don't like the tone of this e-mail, tough, because it's a little taste of your own medicine.


With both sarcasm and sincerity,
MM

Well, I hope you didn't expect anyone to take you seriously after that. I think we have a severe case of the pot calling the kettle black right here.

By the way, this is a post, not an e-mail.

Further no one would need to memorize 100 types of snakes to not kill harmless ones.

In Texas we have a few kinds of rattle snakes, cottonmouths, corals, copperheads and that is ALL. No more so if you can ID a Coral a cottonmouth a copperhead and the few species or rattlers (like that is hard) you don't need to kill any snake that IS NOT one of them.

If you are going to KILL something I don't think it is pompous or arrogant to say before you should take a life you should know what you are killing and why you are killing it.

People that kill with malice and no good reason along with the constant distruction of habitat is what has screwed up the environment so bad in the first place.

It is not complicated to know what a venomous snake looks like in any given area that is all one needs to know if they really don't want to kill nonvenomous ones.

Now what is arrogant and pompous is the 200 pound man that kills a tiny garter or earth snake in his yard with a hoe and then BRAGS about it. That my friend is arrogant and ignorant as well, oh and most of us don't focus on spelling at a forum, we figure we are clear enough to be understood.

"I tell you what, you guys who carry on about not killing snakes are a bunch of pompous, holier-than-thou bufoons, most of whom have extreme difficulty spelling."

Buffoons is misspelled.