Water snake

Willow and I saw a water snake in the dam pool when we were fishing this afternoon. I was looking it up and found these funny stories. Thought we all might need a chuckle....:)
And, I might add, I am glad swimming season is over !

Saturday, April 9, 2005
No reason for Mainers to have the heebie-jeebies over snakes
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
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Source:http://outdoors.mainetoday.com/naturewatching/050409snakes.shtml

On the first warm days this month, garter snakes emerge from winter dens, and without a doubt, this harmless, interesting creature will send plenty of folks into the screaming heebie-jeebies should one of these colorful reptiles happen to slither across their feet. People without a deep-rooted snake phobia may find this screeching amusing, but for those who suffer from this irrational fear, it is no laughing matter.
In July 2001, I was hiking with a Winslow woman in the Camden Hills, and her fear of snakes was so intense that she could not say the word "snake." She referred to them as the "s-word."
Naturally, as you can predict, we were hiking uphill, when I spotted a rather large garter snake, lying in the dead center of the trail ahead -- really visible on the bare earth. It was about 24 inches long and had apparently swallowed a rodent or similar sized critter because it looked ever so fat.
She was looking at her feet and did not notice the snake, so I stopped, casually turned around and blocked her view of the trail ahead. In a huge maple back down the trail, a black-throated green warbler had just made its zoo-zee-zoo-zoo-zee call, a perfect diversion. For the better part of a minute, she kept her eyes on the top of tree, which was about eye level with us.
When a snake moves along the ground, as anyone with good ears knows, they make a soft sound. I could hear this one sliding off the trail and through leaves into the brush. We then resumed our hike. I suspect if she had seen it, she would have run the three miles back to my vehicle.
As snakes go worldwide, a garter snake is small, but this species is actually the second largest snake in Maine and can grow to 44 inches long, according to The Amphibians and Reptiles of Maine (Bulletin 838, July 1992), a publication from the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of Maine in Orono. In this state, though, a garter averages 18 to 26 inches.
Maine and Alaska are the only two states in the Union that have no poisonous snakes, which lead people to think that our snakes do not bite. They do bite, and a quick anecdote says it best.

When I was 10 years old and my cousin, Bud Norton, was 12, his mother asked him to remove a garter snake from a window well by the cellar so it would not get into the house. With me tagging along, Bud walked up to the window well and saw the snake, rather large for Maine. It was coiled in the corner against the cement, so he reached down to grab it.

I said, "It'll bite you."

"You (expletive) fool, Maine snakes don't bite," Bud said. He stuck his hand into the window well and let out a howl. The snake had bitten him between the index finger and thumb in that soft flesh and held on. He was screeching like a banshee, shaking frantically to get the snake off his hand, and of course, I was laughing like a hyena. It took scant seconds to make the snake release its grip, but to Bud, the process seemed much, much longer. He now lives in Wayne, and I recently asked him if he remembered the incident. He did. How could anyone forget all that humiliation in front of a younger cousin?

Garter snakes have tiny, sharp, raspy teeth that fold back toward the throat -- just like a pickerel or pike. When the prey tries to escape from the mouth, the teeth make it difficult to get out. That explains why Bud was having his problems getting loose.

The snake had fallen back into the window well, but the next time, Bud resorted to using a garden rake to fish the surly critter out and carry it into the woods.

Small snakes don't inflict much pain with a bite, but infection often occurs later, albeit an easy infection to control.

Northern water snakes do cause pain with the bite, and Dennis McNeish, a fisheries biologists with DIF&W, once told me that this species has bitten him more than once. He grew up in Pennsylvania, where they are apparently more abundant than here.

In 2002, I had two encounters with northern water snakes, which have emphatically shown that if the snake is close enough, I quickly resort to the old saying that discretion is the better part of valor.

The first one occurred on the Sheepscot, while I was fishing in sandals and shorts. I had hopped along rocks out into the river, when a big, male (stout, blunt tail rather than tapered) water snake came swimming downstream, and the cranky little guy chased me up a bank.

The second one caused me to show cowardly behavior in front of Jolie Clement, my intrepid companion. One night in July, we were wading in the shallows of Long Pond in Belgrade Lakes village, fishing for smallmouth bass.

Just as twilight had turned to dark, I was standing there, minding my own business and waiting for the bass to begin their antics.

Suddenly, a large water snake that had apparently swum up to me underwater burst from beneath the surface and started slithering up my right arm. Apparently, it thought I was a stump and was trying to get on top of my head, but I was not interested in its intention. I knocked it off my arm, dashed for a nearby dock that belonged to Jerry Partridge and flew aboard.

A few seconds later, Jolie climbed onto the dock and asked indignantly: "How come you left me in the water with a snake?"

My heart was still thumping, and for a second, I had forgotten all my politically correct language.
"When a water snake is trying to climb onto your head in the dark, lady, it's every man for himself!"

Ken Allen, of Belgrade Lakes, is a writer, editor and photographer. To reach him, send e-mail to KAllyn800@aol.com
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