Louisiana has millions of small bodies of water that hold bass and panfish. If you are willing to do a little hiking, you can get to secluded ponds that have had minimal fishing pressure on the local inhabitants (read: the fish are neither too timid nor too bright). However, there are a few bad things that go along with these secluded ponds. Lots of biting bugs and, worse, biting snakes. My least favorite is this critter:
Water Moccasins (cottonmouths) are mean, ill-tempered, and aggressive. They will chase you around the pond, and I've even had a couple try to get into my boat if I annoyed them enough.
Fortunately, in Louisiana, they sell really effective snake repellant. Today, I just took my "small size" snake repellant with me.
Snakes aren't generally a problem here in Ohio. But when I was in Texas oh daddy, them's was sum big ass snakes now, and spiders, scorpions, Gila Monsters, fire ants, even feral dogs,,,.........I think there wasn't hardly any wildlife there that didn't want a piece of you.
Strangely enough we often killed snakes with blanks. A 5.56mm or 7.62mm blank pretty well blew them apart at about three feet. Good for starting grass fires too, firing the M-60 in the prone position got interesting a couple of times. I guess only reserve and guard units use it now, improvements no doubt, 375 rounds belted with a spare barrel plus the weapon itself added onto your field pack and flak jacket was close to 90lbs. The assitant gunner carried another 375 rounds. Try hauling that around around for fun............Sniff, I kinda miss it.
Posted by: puggs on May 11, 2003 01:55 AM