Ducks, alligators, snakes, owls

I've had the living daylights scared out of me a couple of times by wood ducks. It happened like this, I was was easing along flipping worms up into some cypress trees very intent upon what I was doing and focused on feeling the tap tap of a bite when I realized that my worm had fell in between the roots, I eased over to the tree to free it and just as I got close the @#$#^% duck flew out and scared the daylghts out of me. If it hadn't been for the trolling motor I would have likely went for a swim. This happened to me twice once at Lake Arbuckle and once down on Shell Creek.


There is a place in Norh Port that us locals call the 9 mile canal. It is a long canal that was dug for drainage and fill for the subdivision. There is the long canal and then there are short canals that seperate the lots. One fall day I was fishing down the canal casting a top water bait and got too close to the bank,what do you do? I learned long ago to go get the bait rather than pull it loose and possibly wear the plug in your face(which I have done on more than one occasion, but thats another story) so I ease over to the bank and bump into the side just at that time a 3-4 foot alligator that was up in the top edge sunning runs across my lap and jumps into the canal. It happened so fast that I'm not sure if I hollered or not, that was funny about 5 minutes later after I calmed down.


Roger and I were down on Shell Creek, which is a impoundment that Punta Gorda gets some of it's water from. We had eased off into a oxbow that had some deep water to do some speck fishing, when we entered we noticed a Large alligator 10ft+, I would say 12ft but I'm not sure. any way we were easing along with the trolling motor and I happened to look down and about two feet beside the boat was this alligator still under water but just hanging there suspended head up tail down and front legs sort of raised. I took one look and was standing in the back of the boat behind Roger, he said what the --- is wrong with you? He never did see what I saw but I swear when I saw that big old girl I had one of those charts that you see in butcher shops showing what cuts of meat come from where.


I was down on the Myakka river years ago, and it was one of those years that we had been having a long drought and the river had all but stopped flowing. I was casting along, and was approaching a oak tree that had a branch out over the river almost touching the water and it was covered with a vine we call bridal veils. It is a native vine that blooms and is covered with white blossoms that smell sort of like jasmine. Any way as I approached this branch a black snake sticks his head out and watches me. I guess he liked the boat because he dropped into the water and swam toward the boat, now i'm not all concerend that much, and I reeled the plug that I had been casting up to the tip of my rod and stuck the end of my rod into the water to guide the snake around the front of my boat, about that time the hook on the plug went under a scale and snagged the snake, well now the fight started the snake was wiggling and I was trying to get the snake loose, I had stepped down into the cockpit of my boat when the snake went on the offence and decided that biting would get him loose? About then I had backed up still holding the rod and fell backwards over the step up at the cockpit, as I fell backwards the rod went back and the weight of the snake pulled his scale loose and he swam back to the tree. When he got back he disappeaed only to stick his head out again to get a good look at the carzy man sort of a what the ---?? That was funny too about an hour later.


Another time I was down on the River early, up river from Snook Haven using a Zara Spook for Snook and was harassed by a barn owl. Every cast would bring him down out of the trees swooping to catch my plug. This went on for about a 1/2 mile and then he won I left. I've been flogged by geese, sea gulls, pelicans, comorants, but no way am I going to fool with a owl and it's talons. This boy wants no part of a knife fight.


Luther