An angler from Mossel Bay in the Western Cape caught more than he expected when he went fishing in the Klein Brak River earlier this week.

Instead of a grunter, Ludwig van Veijeren found himself reeling in a highly venomous puff adder.

Van Veijeren shared a video of the unusual encounter on the Slangboere Facebook page.

In the video, Van Veijeren can be seen standing in shallow water with a white bait bucket and a fishing rod.

“Here we caught a puff adder,” he says. “With prawns as bait.”

Seconds later, the puff adder can be seen gliding across the surface of the water.

According to Slangboere, more than 34 puff adders have been caught in the area over the past four years.

“Be careful. Holidaymakers, look where you swim and look where you walk. The snake can always be nearby,” Slangboere’s post warned.

Unusual catch

Arno Naudé, a herpetologist and snake expert from Snake Bite Assist in Pretoria North, said that while puff adders were not unusual in the area, catching one with a fishing rod would be highly unusual.

“The thing is, it is unusual unless you have thrown the line where the snake is and then pulled it back,” he said.

According to Naudé, the video appears to show the snake biting at something in the water before becoming caught on the hook.

“Snakes are opportunistic feeders, so if something moves within striking range, there is a good chance they will grab it,” he said.

However, puff adders do not normally enter the water to hunt for food, he said.

“Generally, a puff adder cannot dive. It can swim across the water, but it is not going to go into the water to retrieve something,” Naudé said.

He said the video could therefore be genuine, although the circumstances surrounding the encounter were important.

“It is possible that he threw the thing directly in front of the snake and the snake then went for it,” he said.

Plausible explanation

“There are only two reasons a snake is going to bite something. It thinks it is food or it thinks it is something that is attacking it.”

He added that puff adders would not normally eat the type of bait apparently used in the video. However, hunger and opportunity could influence a snake’s behaviour.

“If they are hungry, they will basically taste anything that comes past and hope it is food.”

Naudé said he had encountered numerous social media videos that appeared staged or misleading, with some people manipulating encounters with snakes to generate views and likes.

Despite his concerns about such content, he said the puff adder video could not simply be dismissed as fake.

“It is entirely possible that it happened,” he said. “We just do not know which of the two reasons caused the snake to bite in this case.”

Caxton Network News attempted to contact Slangboere using the telephone number listed on its Facebook page and website. The number was switched off and there was no option to leave a message.

We also sent Slangboere a Facebook message on September 10 and received a reply later that evening saying they would send us a WhatsApp message. By the time of publishing, we had not received any further comment.

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