Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I had an interesting experience this week. My girlfriend and I went fishing in central Illinois. We were shore fishing from a bridge embankment lined with piles of large flat rocks. Now, in past experiences, Northern Watersnakes (Nerodia sipedon) are very wary animals, usually making a hasty retreat at the first sign of people. In this case, however, several specimens would would gather as soon as we arrived, often from a distance, right at our feet. Unless actually touched, they were not at all discouraged by our presence. Even when grasped, they made only weak attempts at defence. (Unlike the the blood-letting strikes I'm accustomed to from angry and frightened Nerodia!) I can only assume that is the result of fishermen leaving injured or disabled fish or bait (minnows are a common bait item) on or near shore, and the snakes having learned of a source of an easy meal. Strangely enough I found no dead snakes, so apparently they weren't being killed, just avoided. In fact, one couple were leaving as we arrived stating they had to go as there were more snakes than fish! My girlfriend even commented that they reminded her of our dogs begging for a treat Any attempt to shoo them away on her part (She was distracted from fishing by the snakes swimming up to her feet) only resulted in them changing location but not departing. This happened every time we were at this site, so it was not an isolated incident. In any case, it was a nice departure from my usual experiences of having to actively search for snakes-In this case they found me!

I've never seen that in wild snakes before, but my captives sure see me as a food source when they are hungry. The pitvipers I currently keep lock on me as soon as I enter the room and follow me with their pits. Once they are removed from the cage with hooks, however, they instantly go into transfer mode and compliantly stay on the hook while being moved to their shift cages. I've heard of Nerodia hanging out around fish hatcheries for free meals, so maybe this a similar behavior you observed. Any pictures you get of them would be cool.

Justin

Very interesting observation... must have been a pretty cool experience for one and all... what is really great is that these snakes aren't being killed out of hand, thus seemingly allow them to equate fisherman with free meals.

Gerry

That was my thoughts. In fact, I don't know what I was most impressed with; watersnakes being so nonchalant about the presence of people, or the the fact that the area wasn't littered with smashed corpses. I realize I'm making alot of assumptions, but perhaps the casual and (from a non-herper's point of view) unaggressive way the snakes presented themselves inhibited the normal defensive reaction in people. It wasn't as if people were unaware of them. Everyone we talked to there mentioned them, but always in a fairly unconcerned way. All in all, an interesting experience but my past experience with people and snakes leads me to believe it won't last long.