Snake on my boat!

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Ken Haptonstall

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Hello Everyone - We had a great trip to Lake Powell last week. Fun fishing, boating and having a few beverages. Wednesday morning we were getting ready to make a run to the marina and I was puttering around my speed boat. Looked in a hold to get some ropes ready and found a nice looking snake sitting on top of my extension cord. On closure examination, it was a rattle snake. After a little consternation about WTF, we decided to get in touch with National Parks Folks.

After many of hours of talking back and forth with NP dispatch, we had Ranger Nick come down and help remove the snake from the boat. I'm not sure how the snake got on my boat, as I keep it tied up to the back of the houseboat. I'm not sure how long the snake was on the boat, but I will tell you I had been reaching in the same hold two nights previous to finding the snake, looking for some bungee ropes to deal with some wind issues. In all likelihoodsmall - hb.jpg small - hold.png small - nick.jpg , the snake was in the hold when I was digging for stretchy ropes.
 
That's a fairly big rattle snake - bigger than usually is found at Lake Powell.

Where do you live? (Even worse) any chance he got on your boat BEFORE you went to Lake Powell?
 
Egads....... bad enough when they are lying under a tamarisk you are tied to......... good warning!
 
Last week, I had a tiny 15 inch bull snake indoors in my hall way. I keep telling myself that a dog probably brought it in. Otherwise, it would be a careful walk in the dark.

What flavor is that one? We have almost all prairie rattlers here, with the odd western near the foothills. I am not familiar with that one.
 
I thought more about this today. It would definitely be a threatened species, Mohave or not. My boat would have been full of holes as I would have stabbed it with the net, oars, the anchor and a Hopkins spoon or a Zara spook everything I had until I got the dang thing out of the boat. They do taste good for dinner!
 
Gem Morris said:
That's a fairly big rattle snake - bigger than usually is found at Lake Powell.

Where do you live? (Even worse) any chance he got on your boat BEFORE you went to Lake Powell?
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We live in Grand Junction and don't have this type of snake in our area. The only "land" we really were on was the stay at Ticaboo the night prior to picking up the houseboat.
 
Sasquatch said:
I thought more about this today. It would definitely be a threatened species, Mohave or not. My boat would have been full of holes as I would have stabbed it with the net, oars, the anchor and a Hopkins spoon or a Zara spook everything I had until I got the dang thing out of the boat. They do taste good for dinner!
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My other option was to pull the plug and walk away. I'm not a fan of snakes in the first place. The folks at the marina suggested I drive it in and then let someone take care of it. Not sure if they understand how boats work with all the holes for snakes to come and go.
 
At stateline houseboat dock a rattler was in an open air break shack rattling away. One of our Navajo mechanics, Wagonburner, heard about it and got there about the time a female ranger did. He walked towards the snake as the rangers voice got higher and higher, her saying "Sir,Sir, Sir,no Sir, no Sir" till he picked it up in the classic behind the head fashion and dropped it in her bag. I thought she was going to arrest him for scaring the crap out of her. On occasion snakes would be found in the engine wells as we were doing our maintenance routine and of course on the beaches. Found a mojave green once in friendship. They are gnarly. Be careful out there!
 
Glad everything turned out okay. We were in the white houseboat with blue stripes just east of you. We were listening on Channel 16, like everyone is supposed to, and heard about your adventure. Now that I know all is well, I can feel less guilty about your plight being one of the punchlines for our trip as we said in our best Woody-from-Toy-Story voice "there's a snake in my boat!"
 
Waterbaby said:
You know they can and do swim..... any chance it came in over the transom?
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This is what I would guess, I didn't think I was going to be able to outrun one with my trolling motor one day on Roosevelt lake. It seemed very determined to get on dry ground, I finally headed for shore and then turned sharply before running a ground. I really didn't want to deal with it in boat with my puppy aboard. the 55 lb. thrust motor would pull the boat right at 2mph on high and he was gaining on me when I turned off the shoreline, fortunately he went on the bank.
 
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