Found a new spot
 

I found a pond on Google Earth over the winter that I have wanted to try for a while. With a lot of bass now moving up shallow for the spawn, I decided today would be the perfect day to scout it out and see what was going on. As soon as I got there, I started seeing tiny bass in the shallows. They were everywhere, tons of them! Only saw a couple of larger fish however, and getting them to bit e proved to be a challenge. I worked around nearly the entire pond, catching about a half dozen bass (and one behemoth sunfish), none of them over a pound, an most not more than a few inches long. Eventually I found a log in the water, the only piece of real structure I had seen all day. First cast with a lipless crank, and something hammers it! A 4-pounder rocketed out of the water, and after a brief fight I was able to land my biggest largie of the year so far.

Can anyone tell me the species of the snake in the third pic?

Re: Found a new spot
 

What a gator sunfish that's epic!! Also slammer 4 lb LM to sweet!

Re: Found a new spot
 

Green snake. Haha, seriously.

Nice fish! Every time I try a spot like that all I find is no trespassing signs.

Re: Found a new spot
 

Smooth Green Snake... harmless.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F..._vernalis).jpg

Re: Found a new spot
 

Consider yourself lucky. They are very hard to find once all the green leaves come in. In all my travels the last 40 years only came across one. They blend in amazingly well especially late spring when leaves have that bright green to them.

Re: Found a new spot
 

My son used to be a snake fanatic and found 10 of the 16 NJ species and photographed them over five or six years. But he never found the smooth green snake, not in NJ, though the two of us did in Illinois. (He once found a whole den of copperheads up on a ridge north of I-80--16 copperheads he counted, catching the largest with his tongs to set on gravel so they assumed strike positions for good photos.)

Re: Found a new spot
 

50 years ago in a wetland woods in hazlet , we used to see a simular snake. We call it a green whip snake. We probably made it up. Would that be the same snake?

Re: Found a new spot
 

http://srelherp.uga.edu/snakes/ophaes.htm

This looks like it.

Re: Found a new spot
 

That's kind of what I thought. The rough, not the smooth. Almost certain only one of the two species is in NJ.

Re: Found a new spot
 

My dad took my brother and I out as kids just to look for snakes. One of the best places was along old rr tracks where there was discarded rr ties. Found a million snakes this way with the most common being - duh - Garter snakes. Also found Hognose, Milk, Black Rat, Black Racer, Ring-necked and Brown Snakes. Found Pine Snake @ Colliers Mills WMA. That is a beautiful snake. Seen quite a few Copperheads along the rocks/boulders that were put in place along some of the old rr tracks in particular the Lackawanna Cutoff.

Re: Found a new spot
 

Wow, I had no idea I was going to turn this board into NJSnakes.com! :D Thanks for the nature lesson, all!

Re: Found a new spot
 

That pond looks very familiar like fort grumpy

Re: Found a new spot
 

Snakes on a plane!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhh, there's 22 species of snakes in NJ as of right now! Love em!!!

Anyway back to the Bass! It's a beaut buddy, it's a beaut!!! BASSMASTER!:D

Re: Found a new spot
 

Matt caught his first pine snake (six feet) barehanded at 11, Franklin Parker Preserve. We did find a hognose north of Rt. 80 and it surprised me because more agile than all the other species besides black racer we've found. He's found the other species, besides brown snake, and milk snake, and some others including timber rattlers way up on the Ridge. Thanks for the tip on railroad tracks, though Matt is 17 now and already CTO for the investment company he and friends incorporated, so he's no longer herping, but who knows, maybe we'll at least get back to the Pinelands, which reminds me. We found lizards among railroad ties there. No actual rails left, but ties, yes. Five-lined skinks we found north, but lots of fence lizards in the pines.