This is a true story.
One spring, my father, a fiend of his and I were tending trot lines we had set out in the Bayou Meto in Eastern AR.
I was on the bank trying to untangle some line that we had drug out of the water. My father and his friend were coming back in a jon boat from baiting another line further up the bayou.
A LARGE snake dropped out of a tree into their boat. They got out of that boat quicker than you can talk about it. It appeared that they were pushing the boat up on the bank while running ON water. They turned the boat upside down and began beating on the bottom with paddles. No snake appeared. After a few minutes consultation, they turned the boat up right and poured a pint of gasoline in the bottom of the boat. (I swear they were both sober at that point). The burning gasoline and paint did not run a snake out of the boat, however. Then the stryofoam under the seats (for floatation) caught on fire.
Thinking quickly, they drug the boat back out into the bayou and tipped it over so it would fill with water and put out the fire. They got the fire out and the boat back up on the bank. Turning it upright, a very large watersnake appeared in the bottom of the boat. My father's friend shot at it twice making some nice .38 inch holes in the bottom of the boat. The snake slithered over the gunwale and into the water, thankful that he had escaped these two armed (and alarmed and highly excitable) swamp rats with his life.
It was by good fortune that we were upstream of where we put and in and could drift back to the trucks. Which we did whilst I held two fingers over the bullet holes to keep from filling with water.
When we got the boat loaded up, the two of them braced me and made me swear that I would not repeat this story, ever, ever. To cement the deal, I got a Winchester Model 12 shotgun the next Christmas, which was a treasure that no 16 year old in my part of the world would have ever dreamed of having.
After 50 years had passed last year, I have told this story to anyone still alive who ever knew the two of them.
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