Nerodia! I worked with Western Cottonmouths in 2008 -- also had some pygmy rattlers, copperheads and many northern water snakes in the lab. Funny thing about the northerns (and other nerodia from what I understand, Concho, etc.) is that grasping them at any point along their body most always elicits a strike and musk response......but if you immediately place the snake back into it's cage and present food, they will eat it right away!
The Cottonmouths....not so much. So it's almost like the nerodia strike purely as a reflex action (likely selected for due to avian predation) but are not "stressed" by the experience. Kind of interesting.
Sometimes I miss the lab, but you can only watch so many hours of neonatal cottonmouths moving through Y-mazes. Bill Nye was much more exciting.
Gene
On Sunday, September 30, 2012 5:34:46 PM UTC-4, Rob Snowhite wrote:
I was out at 4MR today at low tide and saw two things that I had never seen before.--
1st - fishing at the sewage outflow all of a sudden gizzard shad started to explode out of the water in all directions. It looked like salmon trying to jump a waterfall. Then as soon as it started, they all vanished. I can confirm they are gizzards as I saw one foul hooked yesterday.
2nd - a few minutes later something strange popped up out of the water. Not a doodie. It moved toward shore. It turned out to be a good sized brown water snake with a good sized bluegill in its mouth. I got my iphone up to it to record some video before it spit it out. I then slipped and filled my waders. I got lucky with the phone. Time to get a lifeproof case. And about the worries of putting a tippet in mouth after its been in the water, I'm pretty sure I ingested some of the 4MR and have not had any issues so far.
Found an AAA card and another credit card today out there.
On Monday, September 24, 2012 10:39:19 AM UTC-4, Jeff Silvan wrote:I went out to 4 Mile Run yesterday afternoon with my friend. We had mild success - a few largemouths and sunfish, but nothing of size. I did, however, see one giant largemouth (at least 5 lbs, conservatively) right next to the treatment plant discharge and three needlefish that kept chasing my fly. The most interesting thing I saw were massive schools of fish swimming around. These fish numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands, all in the area of the discharge. I'm not sure what they were, but they appeared to be silvery and looked like shad. They were all about 6 inches, but every once in a while I'd see a loner that was 10 or 12 inches. They completely ignored any fly (although I wasn't really trying for them except for three casts with a nymph), and seemed like they were simply displacing any fish that would normally be there. Any thoughts on what these could have been? Lane actually foul hooked one and got a picture, so hopefully he can post it for confirmation. He said it was very slimy if that gives any clues...Jeff
http://www.tpfr.org
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