moguy1973 Posted August 2, 2019 Posted August 2, 2019 On 7/30/2019 at 7:59 PM, jdmidwest said: Not sure that's a Water Moccasin. When they swim their whole body floats on top of the water. Might just be a common water snake. -- JimIf people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles. -- Doug Larson
jdmidwest Posted August 2, 2019 Author Posted August 2, 2019 He swam up closer that morning while I was working on the electronics. It was a cotton mouth. Crappy cell phone pic zoomed in and cropped. Had 2 big boats jacking around me while I was waiting my turn so I snapped a quick pic. He had stopped swimming and sank some. "Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking it seriously." — Hunter S. Thompson
fishinwrench Posted August 2, 2019 Posted August 2, 2019 13 minutes ago, siusaluki said: https://nature.mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/northern-cottonmouth Cottonmouth aren't found north of the Missouri river in MO. They've been there for more than 50 years at least. As far north as Monroe county for sure. Do you think they'd just pass on that bountiful muskrat fest up there?
tjm Posted August 2, 2019 Posted August 2, 2019 Water moccasin is hard to identify- they look exactly like 16 other species, or maybe that's 27 other species, but for sure if it's in or near water it is a moccasin- no other ID needed ...
fishinwrench Posted August 2, 2019 Posted August 2, 2019 44 minutes ago, siusaluki said: They're probably eating all those threadfin shad you see.....if they've been there for 50 years, you may want to alert the state to that population since they actively study and sample every county. My family is from that area and have spent a good deal of time on twain and the the fabi/salt, never saw a water moccasin but plenty of water snakes. I am sure they will ride a barge north from time to time, but they do not occur naturally or have established breeding populations. Identification is the issue, and some folks have more trouble than others apparently... Actually a few friends and I were pretty much junior herpetologists when we were young, we loved snakes, collected them and studied them Spring til Fall for a number of years. You couldn't trip me (or them) up on a snake ID quiz even from across the creek. The librarian knew us as the "Snake boys". We caught a few Cottonmouths just to say we had done it but mostly we were VERY CAUTIOUS with venomous snakes. The others we would actually let them bite us just so we could freak people out and display the bite marks 😁 We thought we were really cool. Now I will say that JD's pic does look more like a black snake.....but I wasn't there and the pic kinda sucks. There are plenty of Cottonmouths on the Salt river and its tribs though, regardless of what is printed. Now that I've lived further south for just as long as I lived up there I can even say that I've actually seen more up there then I have down here. Statements like the one above from MDC just solidify my belief that biologists are 100% full of crap about just about everything they profess to know anything about.
45acp Posted August 2, 2019 Posted August 2, 2019 2 hours ago, fishinwrench said: Statements like the one above from MDC just solidify my belief that biologists are 100% full of crap about just about everything they profess to know anything about. It wouldn't be the first time MDC made up some BS about what kind of critters don't live here. They lied about the mountain lions for years.
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