WA SSSSSSS-urprise

[GOODESkier]

Got out skiing today, was pretty surprised when the boat crew ( @Deanoski‌ ) said at the end of the pass "DID YOU SEE THAT SNAKE AT 1 BALL?"

 

While my instinct said "Think I will end it here, I'll get in the boat...." I then remembered that NATIONALS in 2015 could be somewhere with snakes and other critters....... So, I said hit it. HOWEVER, I must say as I turned 5 ball, visions of that snake were certainly in my head and effected the fluidness of my turn.

 

Likely just a BULL SNAKE, but still all the same if I am in the water with the darn thing! Wish we had a picture!

 

Water temp in the 60's have no clue what the thing was doing in the water!

 

My 5 year old had no interest in skiing today......... hope he forgets by tomorrow!

[pgmoore]

Tell you what. I may live in Alberta and our season may be over (-6C in Edmonton overnight tonight). But sure as sh*t we don't have snakes in the water. And I am more than willing to live with that.

 

Eff. Snakes give me the willies.

[gator1]

Meh. In Illinois we keep a .410 in the boat to clear the course before we jump in. And the carcasses keep the snapping turtles occupied while we get our sets.

[Gloersen]

At least one sighting/session. Only wakeboarders bitten so far.

 

 

[SkiJay]

Another benefit to lake dye . . . no sightings per session. Ignorance is bliss.

[GOODESkier]

Our "swamp" is so heavy in color, no way to see anything. Good and Bad......

[Deanoski]

Crazy that was the first time I have seen a snake on or around the lk. I'm the one who is usaully working on the shore line stacking rocks so we get no back wash. I will pay more attn when

doing this task from now on.

 

steve(goode skier) glad you skied that pass wasnt pretty but you scraped out a -35 with a snake on the brain.

 

Deano

 

 

 

[ForrestGump]

I was driving and @MS was boat judge at a record tournament at Cottonwood a few years ago and was pulling Chase Scott(Chad Scott's 10 yo son). He pulled out at the end and as he started sinking into the water he saw a 6 ft Water Moccasin. I've never seen anyone be sinking into the water and then sort of rise up and start walking across the water before. Or since. The snake was pissed and coming at him, I was swinging the boat in between him and the snake. And MS was pulling him into the back over the gunnel. All in the space of about 8 seconds. Poor kid retired from skiing after that.

[lcarnes]

My husband watched a very large snapping turtle surface next to me as I dropped the other day. He had the poor judgment to tell me-and we have a longish wait for the lake to settle down. Only thing I could do was keep my toes in the toe plate and hope for the best that pass. It's one thing to know they are there and another to know one is right next to you.

[eleeski]

I'm supposed to chime in with the enviro comment about how good snakes are at keeping rodents in check. My mouse problems go away when there's a snake living nearby.

 

Still, I have to kill the rattlesnake that coils up at the front door. I feel bad unless I eat the snake. Tastes great! But be careful, there was a story in the newspaper a couple days ago about a cook who died after preparing cobra soup. The severed head bit him while cleaning up. Moral, don't clean up.

 

I've never seen a rattlesnake swimming in our course. But the non poisonous red racers have threatened skiers. Of course, any snake swimming in your general direction is pretty threatening. No bites (or dinners) from any of the rare water encounters.

 

Eric

[A_B]

We get big rat snakes. Most times we let them take out the mice in and around our shed. If they get aggressive towards people, we introduce them to lead or Mr. Sickle.

[gator1]

Allright! snake stories!

 

Rock river Illinois, water mocs.

 

Jumping, uncle butch at the wheel, me in the boat, Gordon in the water. speedos plug (1982). stop the boat, grab the safety pin, lean over the transom start digging at the pitots. Notice the brown carpet on the platform next to my face appears to be moving towards me in a strange sinuous manner. Rear back up, yell snake. Uncle butch has a problem with snakes. Namely, he responds like a frightened child.

 

Butch starts squealing, punches the gas. I tumble from motor cover to platform, butch backs off gas, snake rolls from platform to water, Gordon is pulled towards snake, snake takes a bead on Gordon (mocs are territorial and will come after you). Gordon starts screaming hit it hit it.

 

Ah, good times on the river.

[gregy]

I think rattlesnakes are the only venomous snakes in Washington state. I've only seen a few rattlesnakes in water a few times in my life. When I have seen them the entire length of their bodies can be seen out of the water. Most watersnakes (other than Water moccasins) you will only see the heads. I grew up in southern Texas with 500 acres of gravel pits in my back yard. Seen many snakes but only gotten bit once and that was a nonvenomous water snake when I reached into some shallow water to grab a fish that was on my line. There usually a few huge Water Moccasins under the jump where we ski, I just let them be and they've never messed with me.

[Onside135]

@Horton...can we please close this thread. It scares me...

[ToddL]

@gregy Yeah, good reason to not be a jumper... or worse, never agree to bail water if the jump water is broken.

[Ed_Obermeier]

Ah, the snake story... Years ago 4 of us were skiing at a local reservoir in a cove well protected from the south wind with my portable course. Wind shifted easterly which makes it wind around a draw and funnels it down the cove making the water choppy. We were pretty well done skiing anyway so we decided to start pulling the course and call it a day.

 

I'm on the back platform pulling in the mainline and disconnecting arm sections, water is getting pretty choppy so couldn't really see anything in it. About half way through pulling the course one of my buds in the boat starts pointing at my feet and excitedly hollering "Snake, snake!". Had a probably 3 foot long black snake on the platform with me around my feet. Fortunately I still had an arm section in my hands which I used to flip the snake about 10' away from the boat. It immediately started back towards the boat, when it got close I flipped it away a second time. Immediately started towards the boat again. So now I'm trying to beat the damn thing to death with the arm section I'm holding, wacking at him as hard as I could, and finally flipped him away a 3rd time.

 

He sits there about 10' away looking at me for a moment as I'm holding the arm section above my shoulder ready to whack him again, heart rate at about 170. I guess he decided we weren't letting him in the boat so he goes on his merry way swimming on across the cove. To this day we still refer to that spot as Snake Cove.

[GOODESkier]

I vote for CANADA for US Nationals in 2015............

[skihard]

There's snakes in the water in Canada too! I've seen them in Wizard Lake in AB and many lakes in BC, & Sask too. Maybe not WM's but there is big Bull snakes and the like there too.

The Okanagan has many rattle snakes and the biggest bull snakes I have even seen.

 

Living in Texas now I have only seen a handful but I know they exist in our ski lakes once in a while too. Or at least my wife thinks they do because she practically walked on water after dropping the 2 x 12 dock joist we were packing into the water while building our new dock and left me just standing there alone................and she says she loves me??????

[GOODESkier]

Yes, I live in the "South" Okanagan........

[Texas6]

This thread will give me nightmares - hate everything about it.

[Edbrazil]

 

My prime water worker up here in the Northeast had a couple of "interesting" experiences with

water creatures. Doing a survey/adjust on a SL course in NH, he had an aggressive snapping

turtle approach him, making hissing noises. Fortunately, he had the survey prism buoy to bonk

it with. At another site in Northern VT, when he was doing Scuba work, he had an aggressive

bass fish go after him, and it even bit into a Scuba hose starting a pinhole leak The bass also

followed him around to the next gate level.

[Mrs_MS]

If it looked like this little thing we found in my BFF yard in FL, it won't hurt you

[eddie_roberts_jr]

First of all, That's 2 brave women! My snake story was in Perris Texas many years ago at Ken "Whitey" White's ski lake. We had a skier in the water and Whitey runs down to the end of the dock right by us with a shotgun he pulled out of the rafters of the boathouse and yells "go, go!" so we did and then we heard a big boom. When we got back to the dock I said "what was that all about?" Whitey says "no big deal, there was just a rattlesnake closing in on your skier" We were very observant the rest of the day.

[Edbrazil]

A bit off-topic, but:

Ken White: RIP. Good guy, and a regular person. Recipient of the AWSEF's Award of Distinction,

in 2004. He won the tricks event at the 1965 Worlds in Australia. Noted in his day for nice clean

"Walk-around" 2-ski stepovers. He also had a good career of success in seniors later on,

plus coaching individuals and teams.

And, I'm sure that he would have been aggressive toward snakes or anything else bugging him.

[MattP]

I was in the boat a Collegent All-Stars 2 years ago at Beaver Lake. The driver tells me to take a look before we drop the skier for anything squigaling in the water so he can run it over with the boat. I was somewhat not impressed. I had just skied not to long before and had no idea. Also taking the long swim back across the lake after falling was worth it.

[GOODESkier]

I dropped right where a beaver had surfaced seconds before about 3 weeks ago.............. wouldn't want to mess with an angry beaver either....

 

She has been eating our nylon anchors for the course. I don't want to wish bad things on the little thing, but if we saw a streak of red behind the boat, I wouldn't be disappointed......

[Texas6]

Did somebody say angry beavers? This thread just took a positive turn

[Bruce_Butterfield]

I have several good snake stories, but I think this is my favorite, although it probably falls into “you had to be there” category.

 

Several years ago, 3 of us were skiing on a 4 lake site and we finished up at dusk, turned the boat off for the skier to get in, but when trying to start again, the battery was dead. Well, crap. That meant we had to swim/walk the boat back to the adjacent lake to get it in its boathouse, which required swimming the boat through a big culvert (~18 ft diameter) that served as the bridge between 2 of the lakes.

 

So I was swimming in front of the boat, pulling, 1 guy was in the boat steering (or rather supervising), and the 3rd guy, who happened to be deathly afraid of snakes, was in the water pushing in the back. After swimming/pulling the boat from halfway down 1 lake, we got to the center of the culvert, which was rather dark, I looked up at our “supervisor” and yelled out “S**T, THERES A SNAKE!!” Our snake-phobic companion popped up on the swim platform and into the boat like he had been shot out of a cannon. We were all the way down the other lake before we could stop laughing.

 

[DmaxJC_ski]

I too am from the cold north and if there is 1 good thing about it, is that there are no bleeping snakes ( maybe the odd garter snake ) but in my book the only good snake is a dead one....... i have had a muskrat or 2 crawl up the hole into my icefishing shack, usually makes for an interesting encounter.