Singlebarbed reader “Ed” recently took me to task on my curmudgeonly stance to invasive species, outlining newly minted facts that was sure to change my mind, and those of my readers …

On Saturday I was visiting a girl friend and we were using her kayaks which hadn’t been paddled in awhile.  We cleaned them up, washed them out … turns out the one I was in had a bit of a leak so I went to shore to empty it …

… and found it carrying a lethal copperhead. Naturally, my first thought was for the watershed so I spritzed it with 409, which blinded the SOB, made it angry as hell – and it was fanging anything that moved.

I stomped it six or seven times with rubber soles and while they flattened it some, I couldn’t get any real purchase to finish the job, so I grabbed my extra pair of felts and beat it to death …

… and they’re right, there was twice the guts, eyeballs, teeth and scales on the felt than on the rubber.

You may want to rethink the felt – rubber thing.

… and my response was particularly evasive given the circumstances:

“Ed, just how long have you known this gal, and is she sending you a message? … Just sayin’ is all …”

Tags: invasive species, copperhead, girlfriend, Formula 409, kayak fly fishing, rubber soles, felt soled wading shoes