Watch your line....and your surroundings.....don't read lizards

[Rodman_Rob]

I took my parents to the Oklawaha Restoration area today to take them and our dogs for a little bit of a hike. We started off spotting animal tracks, saw tracks from racoons, deer, wild boar, bear, our dogs, and a few others, lol. We go a little further and one of the dogs spots an Armadillo and almost goes to war with it. We keep walking and come up to the bridge. We start walking up the hill to the bridge and as the dogs top the hill I look at both of them and what do I see? A 3 FOOT WATER MOCASSIN DIRECTLY UNDERNEATH BOTH OF THEM! I yanked on their leashes hard enough to send both dogs (85 lbs) 3 feet into the air and both landed 4 feet from the mocassin. Luckily both dogs had on harnesses instead of collars so I didn't break their necks in my moment of panic. I still can't believe the dogs nor myself got bit. Of all the times I've come across mocassins, this was the only one that didn't show any aggression. They typically persue me instead of fleeing. Once we got the dogs away and I observed the snake closer, I noticed the back end appear to be a little more flat than round along with some sand on its back side so it appeared to have moved very little recently. We ended up killing the snake for our safety, but also because it didn't appear that it had much of a chance for recovery..........especially after we hit it with the stick. I still can't believe my dog and parents dog along with myself are still alive. We had an hour hike just to get back to the car, and another hour drive to the hospital. Had that been a healthy snake we walked up on our dogs and/or me would have been snake bit and possibly too far away to get to a hospital in time. I know what I need to avoid here in florida, not from others expierence, but from my own, and I know I only need to be cautious of gators, but fearful of snakes and with that I'll say I'm constantly scanning for snakes much more so than gators. I know for a fact I was looking for snakes the entire way, and it wasn't 2 seconds of unattentiveness that put me in a VERY vunerable position. Watch your lines for bass, and your surroundings for snakes! And I'll end with this smiley for snakes as it describes me perfectly