For the first time, I've noticed many ribbon snakes (a type of garter snake) on the shore or swimming in my pond. I figure maybe the larger largemouth will eat them as they swim across the surface even though some are over 2' long. Hopefully heron that stop by will eat them over eating my fish.

We had Northern Water Snakes, which are aggressive enough that my wife and daughter got the experience of beating them of with oars while in a rubber raft, on our first pond when it was fairly new. Once LMB got large enough (to eat them), we never saw them again.

I wouldn't count on a heron eating skinny snakes over fat fish.

On one occasion I saw a 3 ft snake of some sort, 70 ft from shore, attacked from underneath . Lots of splashing for 5-7 seconds, don't know what had it in 15' of water. but whatever had it got a nice protein boost to it's diet. Hoping one of my 16" Walleye or 6 lb CC , maybe a turtle , whatever saved me a .22 LR cartridge. Years ago, "Lazy Ike " had a plastic bait , 7-8" worm with a spoon bill head , pretty much a nightmare on bottom because of design, but when fished faster on the surface it caught most everything, it looked like a small snake , Bass and large crappie hammered it.

I have one of those somewhere.........

I've thought and thought on how to make one, from todays options.

Well, there are kits out there to make rubber worms, right? So you can make the body of the "snake".

To make the head, you might have to buy one at an antique lure show and then use this stuff to make a mold.

https://www.smooth-on.com/

There are many old snake-type soft plastics, most discontinued.
The first one that comes to mind has the same action as a water snake slithering across the surface: Bill Norman Snatrix.

An exact copy was sold by Ditto (shown) but revised due to design infringement and called the Gator Tail. The tail was thicker and had serrations on its outer edge.
Culprit still sells a Ribbon Tail worm that's similar in tail action to the Snatrix.

I have made copies of worms in plaster that came out very close to the original, afraid the design would be discontinued or the company going out of business as in the case of Bill Norman.

Amazon has many mold designs going for as little as $10 for single cavity molds. Ebay sells a snake-cavity mold for $18.

none of those pictures seem to look anything at all like a snake body or a snake head. It would be cool to use plaster or a mold design for a real garter snake for example at about a 10-12" length and pour that out of soft plastic. Awesome!

Google Fred Arbogast Wheedler fishing lure.

The slithering tail as it's retrieved on the surface or jigged off the bottom is all the action needed - not a straight worm with a realistic head.

Lures IMO are unrealistic and unnatural in shape and action by-in-large and the combination of both trigger strikes - not what they resemble.

The Snatrix and Gator Tail worms have very different actions but both catch bass when presented the right way.

(BTW, I still own Lazy Ike crankbaits. Never saw one with a plastic worm.)

Senk ; search " Lazy Ike Worm " , several pictures of them, it's the "spoon " head that's difficult to duplicate , for me at least. If I had the head, then any of todays worms would complete.

The Lazy Ike Spoon Wiggler is all I could find.
I used to cast a black Silver Minnow spoon with worm attached. It did quite well! The action of a spoon with worm trailer is unique - one that causes the worm to whip back and forth - not slither.

I gotta say though that any resemblance to a water snake's movement or profile leaves a lot to the imagination.- one that fish don't possess. Again - it's not what animal a lure looks like whether in profile and/or action, but simply its action/profile-trigger regardless of how unnatural it looks and moves.

Yes it's the one. with the exposed hooks, fishing bottom was tough. So, I went with surface, somewhat like a snake. caught lots of fish, may try some spoons with worm behind. see if the fish will go for it