What were u worrying about...

[Bluegillman]

When you're on the water what is the thing that worries you? One outing my wife wanted to try tubing so we all went. It got light raining and she felt it was a little too cool and wanted out. My son wanted to get in her tube so we float back into a small inlet that was no deeper than our knees. Looking back where we came in, I spot a snapping turtle head as big as my shoes sticking his head above the water! We just went right over it! None of us ever said there was a "rock". Exchanged the tubes and she went on back to the truck and we went back out as fast as we can from that turtle! I don't mind other turtles but that! Once I caught a snapping turtle and drag it home, my dad and mom were awed by the size of that turtle. It had a shell at 20 inches long and the tail was just as long as the shell was. The head was about the same shoe size and mean! I had a broom stick and tapped his nose, boy he did almost cut it off!
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[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]Good story. One of the great things about fishing is the chance to see wildlife. But, some wildlife is better to see than others.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Those big snappers DO have the potential for causing some damage. However, they are not nearly as common as they used to be. It is rare to see a big one anymore.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Depending on what part of the country you live in there can be other wildlife "encounters". I have had "up close and personal" meetings with otters, beavers, muskrats, deer, coyotes, foxes, javelinas, badgers, squirrels and skunks. Being quiet and in the water, many wild critters will not be spooked if you do not make fast motions or if you keep quiet.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]The worst potential meetings are with poisonous snakes. Anyone tubing in areas where there are copperheads or water moccasins has a very real possibility of finding them either along the bank or out in the water with them. Not good. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]When I was tubing in the New Orleans area, I had to watch both for gators and for moccasins. Fortunately, most of my tubing was during the late fall and winter months, when reptiles were mostly inactive. However, I did see some early emerging snakes, in February and March, when they came out to catch some rays in the warm spring days.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Some of the scariest snakes are big rattlers. Many people do not know that rattlesnakes are good swimmers and will take to the water. Down south, those big eastern diamondbacks will crawl right up in a boat with anglers. I suppose they would also get friendly with tubers, but I have never heard of anyone dumb enough to share their fishing hole with one.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]When TubeBabe and I lived in Arizona, we had several close sightings of rattlers swimming in the waters we were fishing. One of our fishing lakes flooded some new area after the dam was raised, and it messed up the rattlers habitat. When they came out of their dens in the spring, they started to spread out and many of them found that their usual paths were flooded with the rising lake. So, they just swam across. Some of them even crawled up in the tops of flooded trees to rest. I tell ya, when you plan to fish for crappies around a sunken tree, and it rattles at you, you change your plans.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]TubeBabe is not a big fan of snakes...of any kind. Whenever there was any kind of snake in the water nearby she just about got up and ran across the top of the lake. Funny to me but not to her.[/#0000ff]
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[Bluegillman]

I have seen a number of water moccasins when I'm fishing with my brother in law at Lake Enid in Mississippi. If we are in his bass boat (the fast one) I worry a little unless we are in the brushes. When he takes the john boat, that is alot to see and we are so low on the water and way in, that's alot to worry all around. They are in the trees or swimming around, he brings his .22 and shoots any that is coming to the boat. He leaves the others alone. My wife is the same thing, one time we went for a walk, I found a garden snake on the sidewalk and picked it up to show her....she was no where near me and I found her a mile away running!
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