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#1
posted to rec.boats
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Gators, sharks, snakes and rays
Most of us have sharks in the back of our minds whenever we swim in
salt water but as attacks are rare we ignore it unless we actually see sharks. I have often seen sharks in the water after I have gotten out. The best I can suggest is to not swim if you see em and not to swim after dark or dusk when they supposedly feed most. Do not swim near bloody bait either. Fear of gators is very similar to fear of sharks. The dang lizards are just too common being in every puddle in these parts. When I was a kid they were much more rare and we would not hesitate in any body of water but these days their population has exploded and I would not go near some bodies of water I used to swim in. Some places are just too "gatorish". You do not swim near the edges of lakes with thick weeds and look out for gators and gator signs. You know they are there but you gotta figure they are scared. If you go out on the water at night and use a light, you can see their eyes glowing red and you'll be amazed how many there are. My brother could "grunt up gators" meaning he could make a noise deep in his throat to call them. Snakes oughta be more worrisome than gators or sharks cuz there's so many of em. Every palmetto thicket probably has at least one rattlesnake but as long as you dont walk through the palmettos, you seem almost safe. Its the Cottonmouth Moccasins that scare me the most. Ugly, evil looking and aggressive, they'll fight you for a fish you catch and they are all over the place. My neighbor has em in his yard and they crawl into his garage from the creek behind his house. All the trompin in the woods near bodies of water we do nobody in my family has been bitten but our dog got bit on her face. She swelled up like a balloon and died within 15 minutes. My earliest remembered boating experience (I was 4) was in a canoe with my mother behind me. A Moccasin charged the boat and tried to climb in and she swung that paddle like an axe decapitating the snake right beside me, sorta made an impression. Sting rays are not normally fatal when they hit you but seriously painful and likely to get infected. My brother in law got hit on his ankle and we had to haul him 20 miles to the hospital to get the barb pulled out. People always say "Shuffle your feet" when you walk in shallow bay water to scare em off and maybe that works. When we were kids, we walked barefoot all over the bays and never got hit but as an adult I wear "water shoes" as a half assed safety measure but I doubt thye'd help. Mostly, I just try to avoid em and swim as much as I can instead of walking. I figure that if you dwell on these things you'll never ahve fun but you should take a few precautions. |
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#2
posted to rec.boats
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Gators, sharks, snakes and rays
"Frogwatch" wrote in message
... Most of us have sharks in the back of our minds whenever we swim in salt water but as attacks are rare we ignore it unless we actually see sharks. I have often seen sharks in the water after I have gotten out. The best I can suggest is to not swim if you see em and not to swim after dark or dusk when they supposedly feed most. Do not swim near bloody bait either. Fear of gators is very similar to fear of sharks. The dang lizards are just too common being in every puddle in these parts. When I was a kid they were much more rare and we would not hesitate in any body of water but these days their population has exploded and I would not go near some bodies of water I used to swim in. Some places are just too "gatorish". You do not swim near the edges of lakes with thick weeds and look out for gators and gator signs. You know they are there but you gotta figure they are scared. If you go out on the water at night and use a light, you can see their eyes glowing red and you'll be amazed how many there are. My brother could "grunt up gators" meaning he could make a noise deep in his throat to call them. Snakes oughta be more worrisome than gators or sharks cuz there's so many of em. Every palmetto thicket probably has at least one rattlesnake but as long as you dont walk through the palmettos, you seem almost safe. Its the Cottonmouth Moccasins that scare me the most. Ugly, evil looking and aggressive, they'll fight you for a fish you catch and they are all over the place. My neighbor has em in his yard and they crawl into his garage from the creek behind his house. All the trompin in the woods near bodies of water we do nobody in my family has been bitten but our dog got bit on her face. She swelled up like a balloon and died within 15 minutes. My earliest remembered boating experience (I was 4) was in a canoe with my mother behind me. A Moccasin charged the boat and tried to climb in and she swung that paddle like an axe decapitating the snake right beside me, sorta made an impression. Sting rays are not normally fatal when they hit you but seriously painful and likely to get infected. My brother in law got hit on his ankle and we had to haul him 20 miles to the hospital to get the barb pulled out. People always say "Shuffle your feet" when you walk in shallow bay water to scare em off and maybe that works. When we were kids, we walked barefoot all over the bays and never got hit but as an adult I wear "water shoes" as a half assed safety measure but I doubt thye'd help. Mostly, I just try to avoid em and swim as much as I can instead of walking. I figure that if you dwell on these things you'll never ahve fun but you should take a few precautions. A long time ago, I was surfing with some friends. We weren't really doing much, as it was sunset time and we were just hanging out past the breakers. My friends had drifted off to another part of the water and I was just sitting on my board just drinking in the swells, the sunset that was in process, and using my feet to keep the board in the right orientation. Out of the corner of my eye I saw some movement in the water, and when I turned to look, I saw a fin, then it was gone. Then, a second later a splash on the other sid, and a fin. Turns out it was a small pod of porpoise. They were just out of arms reach... maybe an inch further away than I could reach every time I tried. They stayed with me for what seemed like an hour, but it was really just 10 minutes. They were big and if they wanted to do damage.... -- Nom=de=Plume |
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#3
posted to rec.boats
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Gators, sharks, snakes and rays
"Frogwatch" wrote in message ... Most of us have sharks in the back of our minds whenever we swim in salt water but as attacks are rare we ignore it unless we actually see sharks. I have often seen sharks in the water after I have gotten out. The best I can suggest is to not swim if you see em and not to swim after dark or dusk when they supposedly feed most. Do not swim near bloody bait either. Fear of gators is very similar to fear of sharks. The dang lizards are just too common being in every puddle in these parts. When I was a kid they were much more rare and we would not hesitate in any body of water but these days their population has exploded and I would not go near some bodies of water I used to swim in. Some places are just too "gatorish". You do not swim near the edges of lakes with thick weeds and look out for gators and gator signs. You know they are there but you gotta figure they are scared. If you go out on the water at night and use a light, you can see their eyes glowing red and you'll be amazed how many there are. My brother could "grunt up gators" meaning he could make a noise deep in his throat to call them. Snakes oughta be more worrisome than gators or sharks cuz there's so many of em. Every palmetto thicket probably has at least one rattlesnake but as long as you dont walk through the palmettos, you seem almost safe. Its the Cottonmouth Moccasins that scare me the most. Ugly, evil looking and aggressive, they'll fight you for a fish you catch and they are all over the place. My neighbor has em in his yard and they crawl into his garage from the creek behind his house. All the trompin in the woods near bodies of water we do nobody in my family has been bitten but our dog got bit on her face. She swelled up like a balloon and died within 15 minutes. My earliest remembered boating experience (I was 4) was in a canoe with my mother behind me. A Moccasin charged the boat and tried to climb in and she swung that paddle like an axe decapitating the snake right beside me, sorta made an impression. Sting rays are not normally fatal when they hit you but seriously painful and likely to get infected. My brother in law got hit on his ankle and we had to haul him 20 miles to the hospital to get the barb pulled out. People always say "Shuffle your feet" when you walk in shallow bay water to scare em off and maybe that works. When we were kids, we walked barefoot all over the bays and never got hit but as an adult I wear "water shoes" as a half assed safety measure but I doubt thye'd help. Mostly, I just try to avoid em and swim as much as I can instead of walking. I figure that if you dwell on these things you'll never ahve fun but you should take a few precautions. Good lord...that's some Paradise you live in! All we have to worry about is the cool water. http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=44258 Wow! It's up to 60F today...I gotta go for a dunkin'. |
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#5
posted to rec.boats
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Gators, sharks, snakes and rays
On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:33:47 -0400, gfretwell wrote:
I am not as sure about the snakes. I am out in the scrub park near the house quite a bit and I have never seen a rattlesnake. There are plenty of black snakes and a few coachwhips there. This may be why http://gfretwell.com/wildlife/Blacksnake1.jpg http://gfretwell.com/wildlife/Blacksnake2.jpg http://gfretwell.com/wildlife/Blacksnake3.jpg http://gfretwell.com/wildlife/Blacksnake4.jpg http://gfretwell.com/wildlife/Blacksnake5.jpg http://gfretwell.com/wildlife/Blacksnake6.jpg http://gfretwell.com/wildlife/Blacksnake7.jpg Great shots. That rattler seemed as long as the racer. I wonder if they ever kill something that won't fit? After that meal, I'm surprised he could move. I took a stingray barb in the foot once on the beach on Sanibel but it wasn't a bad shot. He poked up the barb to say "I'm sleeping here" and I was walking carefully so it only went in about 1/2" I picked open the wound with a fruit pick from the barmaid at the Hilton (now the Sanibel Inn) beach bar and flushed it out with vodka. That's the way John Wayne would have done it. ;-) |
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#6
posted to rec.boats
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Gators, sharks, snakes and rays
On Sep 21, 2:17*pm, thunder wrote:
On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:33:47 -0400, gfretwell wrote: I am not as sure about the snakes. I am out in the scrub park near the house quite a bit and I have never seen a rattlesnake. There are plenty of black snakes and a few coachwhips there. This may be why http://gfretwell.com/wildlife/Blacksnake1.jpg http://gfretwell.com/wildlife/Blacksnake2.jpg http://gfretwell.com/wildlife/Blacksnake3.jpg http://gfretwell.com/wildlife/Blacksnake4.jpg http://gfretwell.com/wildlife/Blacksnake5.jpg http://gfretwell.com/wildlife/Blacksnake6.jpg http://gfretwell.com/wildlife/Blacksnake7.jpg Great shots. *That rattler seemed as long as the racer. *I wonder if they ever kill something that won't fit? *After that meal, I'm surprised he could move. I took a stingray barb in the foot once on the beach on Sanibel but it wasn't a bad shot. He poked up the barb to say "I'm sleeping here" and I was walking carefully so it only went in about 1/2" I picked open the wound with a fruit pick from the barmaid at the Hilton (now the Sanibel Inn) beach bar and flushed it out with vodka. That's the way John Wayne would have done it. *;-) Great pics. |
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#7
posted to rec.boats
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Gators, sharks, snakes and rays
On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:21:34 -0400, gfretwell wrote:
Did you see the picture of the python that ate a gator so big that it exploded? Yeah, that was also impressive. http://criticalmiami.com/index.php?id=236 |
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#8
posted to rec.boats
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Gators, sharks, snakes and rays
On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:01:18 -0400, gfretwell wrote:
The pythons are so bad in the everglades they have opened up hunting for them. No closed season, no bag limit and no restriction on how you take them. My son in law works for water management and the guy they have taking them uses a shotgun. The trick is being far enough away that when you hit one in the part that is exposed, he can't get you when he strikes back. It is certainly not a "single shot" shotgun sort of thing. You need a quick follow up shot to hit him in the head on that strike. It is sort of a "station 8 low house" sort of thing but a "double". There are teams that capture them alive but they are not your average people and they do get bit a lot. The bites are very likely to get infected. I am going to get out there with the water management folks the first time I get a chance but I will be a shotgun guy, not a "grab'm" guy. (at least not at first) I might want to go out with a capture team once I get a feel for it. I don't mind wrestling with critters. Looks like you have a new python, besides the Burmese one. http://www.miamiherald.com/573/story/1243680.html I'm still amazed those things will tangle with an alligator. I was doing a little reading on the pythons. It seems they could really do some damage on the Everglades ecosystem. That's a shame. There isn't any place like the Everglades. |
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#9
posted to rec.boats
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Gators, sharks, snakes and rays
On Sep 21, 9:49*pm, thunder wrote:
On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:01:18 -0400, gfretwell wrote: The pythons are so bad in the everglades they have opened up hunting for them. No closed season, no bag limit and no restriction on how you take them. My son in law works for water management and the guy they have taking them uses a shotgun. The trick is being far enough away that when you hit one in the part that is exposed, he can't get you when he strikes back. It is certainly not a "single shot" shotgun sort of thing. You need a quick follow up shot to hit him in the head on that strike. It is sort of a "station 8 low house" sort of thing but a "double". There are teams that capture them alive but they are not your average people and they do get bit a lot. The bites are very likely to get infected. I am going to get out there with the water management folks the first time I get a chance but I will be a shotgun guy, not a "grab'm" guy. (at least not at first) I might want to go out with a capture team once I get a feel for it. I don't mind wrestling with critters. Looks like you have a new python, besides the Burmese one. http://www.miamiherald.com/573/story/1243680.html I'm still amazed those things will tangle with an alligator. *I was doing a little reading on the pythons. *It seems they could really do some damage on the Everglades ecosystem. *That's a shame. *There isn't any place like the Everglades. B'leve it or not, the PETA types got upset about shooting the pythons. |
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#10
posted to rec.boats
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Gators, sharks, snakes and rays
On Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:37:08 -0400, wrote:
On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:49:48 -0500, thunder wrote: On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:01:18 -0400, gfretwell wrote: The pythons are so bad in the everglades they have opened up hunting for them. No closed season, no bag limit and no restriction on how you take them. My son in law works for water management and the guy they have taking them uses a shotgun. The trick is being far enough away that when you hit one in the part that is exposed, he can't get you when he strikes back. It is certainly not a "single shot" shotgun sort of thing. You need a quick follow up shot to hit him in the head on that strike. It is sort of a "station 8 low house" sort of thing but a "double". There are teams that capture them alive but they are not your average people and they do get bit a lot. The bites are very likely to get infected. I am going to get out there with the water management folks the first time I get a chance but I will be a shotgun guy, not a "grab'm" guy. (at least not at first) I might want to go out with a capture team once I get a feel for it. I don't mind wrestling with critters. Looks like you have a new python, besides the Burmese one. http://www.miamiherald.com/573/story/1243680.html I'm still amazed those things will tangle with an alligator. I was doing a little reading on the pythons. It seems they could really do some damage on the Everglades ecosystem. That's a shame. There isn't any place like the Everglades. I was flipping channels tonight and saw that Jackass guy playing with two anacondas in one of those ball houses the kids play in. One of the snakes disappeared in those balls and popped out of nowhere to grab one of the guys by the leg. The Jackass guy got two nasty bites on his arm trying to hold one. He had it too far from the head (maybe on purpose, considering who it was). I am thinking the shotgun doesn't sound like a bad idea. I am not looking for aT The internet should disclose some makers of western boots. Might be good money in the skins Casady |
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