OT: Alligators and sharks. Scary or no?

I live a 5 minute drive from Mobile Bay. Where I-10 and 98 meet, which his where several rivers empty into the bay, you can go along the board walk and see dozens of sunbathing gators, some 12-13 foot monsters, I mean absolute goddamned dinosaurs. I love to kayak and Mobile is considered a kayaking Mecca but you won't ever catch me doing it, here. While gators, even big ones, naturally tend to avoid humans, I don' want to run afoul of some enormous bastard that was conditioned by hothead tourists or rednecks to expect food from humans, and come tip me and tear me apart, drowning and dismembering me savagely in brackish water. Nor do I enjoy water moccasins and other snakes. And you see those plenty. Now, I DO swim in the Gulf all the time, at Dauphin Island, Orange Beach, Pensacola, Destin, Fort Morgan, etc. Yes, there are Bull sharks (technically tigers and hammerheads and others too, but bulls are the only truly one to fear, here), but, if you swim between say 9 am and 4 pm during the summer, with semi clear water, between the beach and the first sandbar, away from bait fish or fishermen, you will, barring just....the worst luck ever...be fine. I swim without too much paranoia. But if I see fish jumping out of the water nearby, I tend to get closer to shore to play it safe.
 
Toadman005 said:
I live a 5 minute drive from Mobile Bay. Where I-10 and 98 meet, which his where several rivers empty into the bay, you can go along the board walk and see dozens of sunbathing gators, some 12-13 foot monsters, I mean absolute goddamned dinosaurs. I love to kayak and Mobile is considered a kayaking Mecca but you won't ever catch me doing it, here. While gators, even big ones, naturally tend to avoid humans, I don' want to run afoul of some enormous bastard that was conditioned by hothead tourists or rednecks to expect food from humans, and come tip me and tear me apart, drowning and dismembering me savagely in brackish water. Nor do I enjoy water moccasins and other snakes. And you see those plenty. Now, I DO swim in the Gulf all the time, at Dauphin Island, Orange Beach, Pensacola, Destin, Fort Morgan, etc. Yes, there are Bull sharks (technically tigers and hammerheads and others too, but bulls are the only truly one to fear, here), but, if you swim between say 9 am and 4 pm during the summer, with semi clear water, between the beach and the first sandbar, away from bait fish or fishermen, you will, barring just....the worst luck ever...be fine. I swim without too much paranoia. But if I see fish jumping out of the water nearby, I tend to get closer to shore to play it safe.
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Kayaking on Mobile Bay is a no go for me. Look what they caught recently…

 
Used to catch sharks and swim in the same water....same beach.....same spot. Used to go wade fishing in the St John's river with alligators all around and thought nothing of it....even when I had a big largemouth that I just reeled in. I knew my limits though. Like when I snagged a baby gator in a channel off the river back in the day and that thing started barking. I cut that bitch off and left out with much haste cause I knew mama was close by.

We have both sharks and gators (to a much lesser extent than Florida) up here in NC, but I still don't have any issue getting in the water at the beach nor fishing in the fresh water areas around here. Now snakes (especially cottonmouths....those fuckers will chase you) that's a whole 'nother damn story. Screw those things.

Best thing I can say is know your surroundings and respect boundaries between the animal kingdom and ours and always be aware and alert.
 
MarineUKFan said:
Used to catch sharks and swim in the same water....same beach.....same spot. Used to go wade fishing in the St John's river with alligators all around and thought nothing of it....even when I had a big largemouth that I just reeled in. I knew my limits though. Like when I snagged a baby gator in a channel off the river back in the day and that thing started barking. I cut that bitch off and left out with much haste cause I knew mama was close by.

We have both sharks and gators (to a much lesser extent than Florida) up here in NC, but I still don't have any issue getting in the water at the beach nor fishing in the fresh water areas around here. Now snakes (especially cottonmouths....those fuckers will chase you) that's a whole 'nother damn story. Screw those things.

Best thing I can say is know your surroundings and respect boundaries between the animal kingdom and ours and always be aware and alert.
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Water moccasins aka cotton mouths have the worst demeanor of any snake I know of by a large margin. We don't have many up here but they are here, the Iowa dnr says they aren't, but they are, I've been killing them since I was a kid. First one I killed was with a gig when I was 15 in '93. My brother and I were gigging carp in the flood waters below my parents hill and that mean sob tried getting me. I was standing on the gravel road which was flooded so you could see pretty well what was around you and that fucker came up out of the deeper dark water in the ditch. He damn near got me. He was really mad when I lifted him out of the water stuck on that gig. I bashed his head in with a stick and enjoyed it.
 
Copejunkie said:
Water moccasins aka cotton mouths have the worst demeanor of any snake I know of by a large margin. We don't have many up here but they are here, the Iowa dnr says they aren't, but they are, I've been killing them since I was a kid. First one I killed was with a gig when I was 15 in '93. My brother and I were gigging carp in the flood waters below my parents hill and that mean sob tried getting me. I was standing on the gravel road which was flooded so you could see pretty well what was around you and that fucker came up out of the deeper dark water in the ditch. He damn near got me. He was really mad when I lifted him out of the water stuck on that gig. I bashed his head in with a stick and enjoyed it.
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Kill them all.
 
Copejunkie said:
Water moccasins aka cotton mouths have the worst demeanor of any snake I know of by a large margin. We don't have many up here but they are here, the Iowa dnr says they aren't, but they are, I've been killing them since I was a kid. First one I killed was with a gig when I was 15 in '93. My brother and I were gigging carp in the flood waters below my parents hill and that mean sob tried getting me. I was standing on the gravel road which was flooded so you could see pretty well what was around you and that fucker came up out of the deeper dark water in the ditch. He damn near got me. He was really mad when I lifted him out of the water stuck on that gig. I bashed his head in with a stick and enjoyed it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, those fuckers are the honey badgers of the snake world. They just don't GAF.
 
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