re: Snake came out of Gulf in Destin

I was wade fishing in a river with a buddy in waist deep water. The rocks were large and slick and you could not move very fast. The air temperature was 80 but the water temperature was 53. So very, very cold.

We look upriver and a four foot black snake was swimming across the river but also being swept toward us. It became apparent the snake was going to miss me but come very close to my Buddy. He started yelling at it like a dog, No!, No!, Get Back, Back.

I’m laughing uncontrollably at this point.

The snake starts to tire and sees him as a place to rest and heads straight toward him.

He is splashing the snake and trying to hit it with his fly rod. Finally my friend picks up his feet and starts swimming away with the snake following.

The snake crawled on a large rock and rested, and my friend got to shore without his rod and we left minutes later.

It was a black, banded water snake. Not poisonous but at the time all we could think was water moccasin.