Credit: @splinc
Sam Lincoln and a friend were fishing in the Chagrin River recently, prior to this weekend’s thaw, and pulled a huge catch: a 16-foot-long boa constrictor, frozen and coiled around river debris.

The fisherman wrote on Instagram that he and his buddy were “fishing a run and looked up and saw it wrapped around a log, half frozen in the water.” He added that the snake weighed “easily 125+ lbs.”

Lincon is a licensed fly fishing guide from the Cleveland area.

From WJW:

Despite a snake being used to warmer conditions and the frost being lethal to them, Cleveland Metroparks aquatic biologist Mike Durkalec says it’s not the first time he’s come across a dead constrictor.

“Over the years, I’ve had two incidents where I’ve personally seen constrictors dead along our rivers this time of year. One was a 7-foot animal snagged by a fisherman; the other one, I found myself just along the side of the river. That was about a four to five foot boa,” said Durkalec.

He says this may happen when someone decides to get the snake as a pet, but then releases it into the wild when it gets too big.

This article appears in Dec 21-27, 2016.

Eric Sandy is an award-winning Cleveland-based journalist. For a while, he was the managing editor of Scene. He now contributes jam band features every now and then.

4 replies on “A 16-Foot-Long Boa Constrictor Was Found in the Chagrin River”

  2. Can we just make these animals illegal? They’re a disaster waiting to happen. This is a very deadly exotic animal here in Ohio!

  4. ‘very deadly’, ‘disaster waiting to happen’? With that logic, we should make all large dogs illegal first because of the immensely higher rate and severity of dog related injuries and deaths in the United States. In fact, here is a ten year study of non-venomous animal injuries and mortality (so, pets mostly) neither pythons nor boas even get an honorable mention because they are so uncommon:

    RESULTS:

    There were 1802 animal-related fatalities with the majority coming from nonvenomous animals (60.4%). The largest percentage (36.4%) of animal-related fatalities was attributable to “other mammals,” which is largely composed of farm animals. Deaths attributable to Hymenoptera (hornets, wasps, and bees) have increased during the past 60 years in the United States and now account for more than 79 fatalities per year and 28.2% of the total animal-related fatalities from 1999 to 2007. Dog-related fatalities have increased in the United States, accounting for approximately 28 fatalities per year and 13.9% of the total animal-related fatalities.

    And here’s another page of statistics from the Humane Society.

    http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/wildlife/captive/constrictor-snake-attacks.pdf

    Incidents do happen, but they are always avoidable and because of negligence, and your comments are stupid.

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