i have had a matt lure bluegill for about a a year now and have never caught a fish on it until today. i brought it with me today in hopes of hooking up with some of these monster tarpon that are in this lake at my moms condo. i was swimming it by a culvert and WAM. this nice 5 pounder inhaled it. it was the only fish i caught on it, but what a vicious strike. the second pic of the aligator sign has a nice snake at the base of it. check it out.

Nice fish! I first swimbait fish I ever caught was on a matt gill.

I haven't caught anything on the gill either but tear'em up on the baby bass.

You're lucky though, condo fishing is usually very good here in S.Fla.

Yeah, that's a corn snake or red rat snake, they bite but are not poisonous.

no it definitely was not a red rat snake. i'm not sure if it was a water bandit or mocassin.

nice trip!  ;D

Banded Water Snake: http://www.snakesandfrogs.com/scra/snakes/images/banded_watersnake_juv_1.jpg

Cotton Mouth: http://thesnakechaser.com/snakes/Cotton_mouth.jpg

Its a corn or rat snake.  It lacks the head shape of a pit viper.

Congrats on that Hawg. I'm thinking harder about getting me one of those swimbaits  

Tarpon and bass in the same water? COOL! if hats the case I might be a little bummed to hook a bass instead of a tarpon. Thats a good bass though, thanks for posting