





OK, our snake cohabiter's and friends, since we're on this squirmy subject,
I'll tell one...
I was at my Grandparents place in the country, in the summer of 1975...
Everyone went to town except me, and I was flipping a lure down at the creek,
which was a nice 1/4 mi. long, 30' wide, some places over 6' deep hole of water,
with decent sized fish, turtles, and all, even some beaver at times...
Dad was an excellent shot with his pearl handled .22 cal. pistola,
and helped keep the undesirable critters out of the fish and swimmin' hole..
He could hit a dime almost center on a fence post, at about 30 yards,
and told me he was sure he had hit a snake, before they left for town...
As I moved toward a small point, I heard a... ker-plunk...I looked where I heard
the little splash, and there, inches below the water surface, was a snake head,
lookin' right at me...
Slowly I stepped back and turned away from the bank, and ran about 100 yds.
to the house, and returned with Granny's .410 shotgun, loaded with small game
shot, and eased up to the creek bank and looked to find the snake head still
there lookin' at me...
I shot it, and it went out of sight... So I ran back to the house, got a dirt rake,
and raked down as far as I could till I had a very mad big fat water moccasin,
writhing wildly on the bank... It was about 4' long, and I did it in...
After cutting it's head off, I carried the stinking thing home, skinned it, and
found a 10" catfish in it, along with a bunch of silver dollar sized semi-transparent
eggs, I could see the little snakes inside of...
I stretched it out and tacked it to cardboard, and salted it generously...
My younger brother like it, so I gave it to him...
It took 3 days to get that smell out of my hands...
When my Dad got back home, I showed him the .22 hole just down below
from the middle...
He had shot it in the center, looped over a log...
He thought I was crazy for keeping the foul smellin' skin...
I didn't like the smell at all, and that's why I gave it away...