RSS FeedLynyrd Skynyrd – Fishing With Ronnie Van Zant
Monday, April 26, 2010
One night, we were fishing out at Ronnie Van Zant’s house. When we were finished, we started walking up to the house. Ronnie went to the back of the house and I went around to the front to put the fishing poles in the garage. Just as I reached the garage, I heard Ronnie yell, “Judy, get me the gun.” I ran around to the back and Ronnie said, “Gene, stay back. I just stepped on a snake.” Judy came to the back door and asked, “Why do you want the gun?” Boy, Ronnie was mad, scared, and shaking at the same time and he screamed some censored words and said, “I stepped on a snake.” Judy ran and got the gun. “Now turn the outside light on,” he said. We didn’t see the snake anywhere. I don’t blame the snake because I would have hauled tail too with all the racket that was going on. We looked for the snake and finally found him up against the steps leading onto the porch. Ronnie blew up half the porch and the steps shooting at the snake. I said, “Damn, if that snake knew he had that coming tonight, he wouldn’t have gotten up this morning.” I don’t think Ronnie was in a laughing mood because he was still shaking all over. It had scared him so bad he didn’t even know if he was wearing shoes or not.
We pulled the snake out from the hole Ronnie had blown him in to see what kind of a snake it was and I almost fainted. It was a cottonmouth water moccasin which is one of the top five “Most Poisonous” snakes in Florida. Boy, Ronnie was sure lucky that night. There were about as many snakes on his property as there were fans he had and that goes way up into the millions.
Gene
