Family has close call with Rattlesnake on Fontana Lake NC.

[Shannon]

This is nuts! I spent many summers on this lake as a kid. We never saw one in the water but several on the banks and rocks close to shore.. I would have had a heart attack for sure!

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018/07/25/rattlesnake-terrifies-north-carolina-boaters-as-it-swims-across-lake-attempts-to-slither-aboard.html

 

[boudin]

A couple of weeks ago I walked out to our boat house around 9:30PM just to check on things. I had a flashlight and while I was walking up to the boat.... whoaaa! A big snake on the deck of the boat house, wrapped around the piling where we lower the boat. Scared the crap out of me.

It looked like a big cottonmouth, but then I noticed he did not have a large diamond head. I used a boat hook to unwrap him from the piling and then slung him into the water (he did not want to go). It was about 1 1/2" thick and about 4' long. I later identified him as a diamond back water snake, which is common in Texas and non venomous. They are often confused with the cottonmouth.

I didn't have my camera to take a pic, so you'll need to take my word for it!

-Greg

 

[haknslash]

Ya know just the other weekend I was laying on the lower sim deck soaking in the sun. Almost dozed off it was so nice and relaxing. Then I began to think about a big cottonmouth swimming up while I was asleep and being so low to the water it would be no problem for one to climb aboard. So yea...I didn't get any sleep on the lower deck

A few years ago while @Bill D @blacksapphirez and I were out on Bill's boat surfing we left my boat and Jin's boat anchored in a cove with Bill and Jin's wives swimming. When we came back both women were in each boat flagging us over. Bill' s wife saw the snake swim in between the boats while they were swimming near the stern. It ended up trying to get on my bungee dock line lol. I think it's a cottonmouth but not sure. Any snake is a dead snake if near me!

 

[boudin]

Hard to tell for sure unless you see the head and belly better, but from the pic, it sure does look like a cottonmouth.

They are elusive. Up where we are there's a guy nearby that is a snake expert and he says in the 15 years he's lived on Livingston, he's seen hundreds of diamondback water snakes and other varieties, but only single cottonmouth.

-Greg