When it is cold water like today - some of them you can pull up to in boat and touch them. Smaller ones like these - six, seven ft much more obliging. I saw a couple 9 footers and got about 30 ft from. These smaller six or seven footers, could catch everyone of them on a buzzbait or frog in warm weather. I have had them try to climb in the boat after a frog. Big one, over ten ft - pretty wary. Get thirty feet from them and they go down. You never know if they are hiding or stalking you