[shootniron]

What do you guys use for protection from snake bite? Do you use boots or gaiters. I live in the south and we have snakes aplenty seemingly all year long. I have always used boots, but now it is time to replace them or try some gaiters and I would like some feedback as to which most of you prefer. Thanks

[ole farmerbuck]

.410?

[shootniron]

.410?

Gotta be able to see them for the .410 to do any good. These diamondbacks, copperheads and cottonmouths are hard to see when walking into a stand before daylight and out after dark.

[BullFrawg]

Either work fine if you're worried about it. Most of the time they feel you coming and get out of the way, but those bite-proof materials are nice insurance.

I never understood the whole "shoot snakes for protection" thing. A venomous snake on my property with kids around, maybe, but in the woods? I've never met a snake I couldn't just walk around (they don't have legs, after all).

Sorry. Herpetologist here. I'll leave now. ;)

[shiftyer1]

I've always just worn jeans and boots......that snakeproof stuff sure would be nice insurance. I just walked out to my shop in sandals tonite, everytime I do that gettin snake bit is always in the back of my mind.

Busting brush makes me nervous, if I had the gators i'd wear em for that.

[baylorattorney]

I wear snake boots in the field always. Not so much snakes I'm fearing, it's the cactus and mesquite and all the other thorns. I wear King Ranch Hunting shoe/boots and some Chipewa.

[Flintknapper]

If you use gaiters or "leggings" we call them, you still have to have good footwear underneath to prevent "low bites", so you might as well use a good, tall, boot IMO.

The exception being...if you do not intend to be afield for very long or make frequent, short forays into snake habitat....then something easily removed makes more sense.

Nearly anything will work against copperheads, pygmy rattlers, small/young moccasins and certainly Coral's, but large Moccasins, mature Eastern and Western Rattlers can strike pretty hard...so make sure you've got good protection (and not just above the ankle).

[MCgunner]

I used to use these plastic zip up leggings that were cheap. I prefer my snake boots, more comfy, water proof footwear. They're Magellan brand, bought 'em at Academy for about 80 bucks.

Oh, I've tested mine against a little 3 ft rattler, worked great. :D Felt like a piece of brush or something. Didn't realize it was a snake until I heard my buddy walking behind me scream like a girl. Turned around to see him 3 feet in the air. Didn't know a fat 60 year old could jump so high. :D The snake missed him, fortunately, because he was wearing normal shoes.

[Flintknapper]

Serious boots:

http://www.chippewaboots.com/category/snake_boots

I like the #23922 it is a comfortable blend between a round toe and square toe boot...and you don't have to fight them to get them on once they break in a little.

[MtnCreek]

Snake chaps. I have some that zip up the sides and have snaps to connect to my belt. They give protection (so I've been told) to just above the knees and are easily removed without taking my boots off. I wised up and quit coon hunting, so I just use them for weedeating fence lines now. They’re briar proof too. ;)

[TNboy]

I have a pair of chaps that I picked up at a mom and pop gas station 10 years ago for $20 on closeout. They are great. Never tested them that I know of. I too used bought them for coon hunting and briar protection more than anything. In warmer weather they are hot. They work great in the winter for throwing on over a pair of jeans and rabbit hunting but I really can't recommend them for summer time use in hot climates.

[Big Bad Bob]

i have a pair of Chippewa 17" snake boots that I have been using the same pair of for 6 years, great comfortable boot, no strikes, but seen alot of snakes in the swamps I hunt.

[Art Eatman]

I've seen plastic wrap-around leggings which rest on the boots. Looks noisy if worn outside one's pants, but a bit of padding on the top edge and wearing them inside would cut down on rattle-noise against weeds or brush.

My joke about my own wandering is that my feet just won't go where snakes are. I was taught to not walk where I can't see my feet; generally more open country than river bottoms, of course. I don't step beyond a log, nor step downhill past a small ledge in rock.

[MCgunner]

Problem with walking where you can see your feet is that, on my place, that doesn't let you go many places, ROFL! I've owned it 25 years and never shredded, just keep it natural. It's burned a few times, but other than that, grass is waist high in places and the scrub oak takes over on the motts. I'm fishing doves out of that scrub oak a lot in the fall. I've been into brush like that and heard multiple rattles. That'll get ya high steppin' outta there! Ain't no dove worth THAT. :D

[hardluk1]

I grew up in south florida and went barefoot or converse high tops if around palmetto patchs. Never walked looking for snakes. Hunted that way for 30 years. Had a few to avoid but only got twitchy one time when day light came up and I was in 2 feet of water inside a moccasins nesting area. Must have been 20 snakes around me. Backed out and went another way. You grow up around them its just different. We use to kill, clean and fry up rattlers at fish frys.

[MCgunner]

Well, I never had snake boots, either, then I bought land in coastal south Texas. Some places just seem to be where the snakes wanna be. Western diamondbacks are everywhere down here. I've killed 'em out of my back yard that went 6 feet. There were copperheads and moccasins up the coast where I grew up in the live oak woods, but down here, it's a rattler haven. One ignores the possibility at one's peril, especially this time of year in the spring.

[Sergei Mosin]

Never got hit but I remember one dark night down in MCgunner's neck of the woods lacing up air hoses back in the tall grass and weeds in a customer's facility and praying, "Oh Lord, please don't let there be any rattlers back here tonight." Boots don't do much good when you're bent over working between cars, and if a train were going by on the main I'd never hear a rattle.

[shootniron]

I have a pair of Redwing 17" boots that I have worn for the last 20yrs(they almost drowned me in a river about 15yrs ago), but they have just about had it. The tops are still great, the bottoms are completely shot. I think that I will order a pair of the Chippewa boots and keep going. It is just too thick and there are too many snakes for me to be comfortable walking about in the area that I live without boots or leggings (used leggings exclusively many years ago and before they were "gaiters").

[351 WINCHESTER]

I have been very lucky, hunting in ne fl for 45 years. I had 2 close calls. Once with an eastern diamondback and the other a mocasin. My oldest son about 12 at the time killed the mocasin that I did not see. By the way, I am careful where I step and do my best to look, but I really should invest in some good boots.

[jrdolall]

I wear decent boots and tuck my jeans inside when working/walking in tall grass. I have owned snake boots and gaiters and leggings and they are all WAY too hot for Alabama after May 1st and before October. Most snakes you run across cannot bite through average boots or jeans. That is totally incorrect if you are dealing with mature rattlers or moc's as their fangs are long enough to penetrate jeans or lightweight boots.

I shoot any poisionous snake I see on my property because we do walk a lot as well as hunt and have dogs running around. My Lab is the best snake deterrent as he always finds snakes when we go out. Mostly Easterns here with the occasional moc around water. I seldom see copperheads although I know they are around.

I believe the theory that "a snake will make you hurt yourself worse than he will hurt you". I have seen people nearly kill themselves trying to run 100 yards away from a black runner. I am still looking for Jeff Foxworthy's Copperheadedwaterrattler.

[Flintknapper]

I am still looking for Jeff Foxworthy's Copperheadedwaterrattler.

We have the "RattleHeadedCopperMoccassin" here. But both...are bad snakes. ;)

[shootniron]

jrdolall


Most snakes you run across cannot bite through average boots or jeans. That is totally incorrect if you are dealing with mature rattlers or moc's as their fangs are long enough to penetrate jeans or lightweight boots.

How do you know which you may encounter?

[jrdolall]

Just playing the odds. After 50 years of wandering around in the woods I have not yet been bitten.

[Tinker]

Never understood the "blast a snake if you see one" thing. Like mentioned above....a pit viper of some kind close to my house....then yes. Everything else gets a pass. Killed most of the snake I sent to snake heaven with a rock or stick.

Lived in the south my whole life....just don't walk through snakey looking places with low visibilty of where your foot falls. You will avoid most Rattlers minding that. The only species that concern me are Copperheads and Moccosins. Copperheads are incredibly hard to spot in leaf duff. Moccosins are fast and often aggressive. In areas where I may stumble into one of those I might strap on some gaiters (Rattler brand).

[jaysouth]

In the 60s, I was working as a surveyor and timber cruiser. When working the 'bottoms' in East Arkansas, some of our folks wore the then state of the art aluminum leggings with suede trimmings at top and bottom.

Our crew chief was wearing a pair of these when he got struck by a Diamondback. The snake was over 6 feet long and hit him so hard that it left a big dent in his legging. He said it felt like getting hit with a baseball bat.

I skinned the snake out with the intent of making a belt of the the hide. However, it stunk so bad that I threw it away before the day was over.

Another time, we were cruising timber in the Black River bottoms while the area was still spring flooded. The same crew chief was knee deep in water when he got up on a moccasin on a branch sticking out of the water. His only weapon was a timber scaling rule (Biltmore scale) about 18 inches long. He killed the snake by hitting it 214 times in 1.9 seconds with his 18 inch stick. The accompanying dance and sound effects were quite theatrical too!

[shootniron]

jaysouth

214 times in 1.9 seconds

WHO counted the blows? lol

[Skyshot]

My son in law wears the boots, but guess what, he got bit in the hand this year while turkey hunting. He is OK, a copperhead got him in the finger while he was setting and calling. It was a glansing hit so he didn't get the full charge of venom. Evendently the snake was just under the leaves where he had laid his call down at. Murphy's law I guess.

[dogrunner]

We had a local deputy badly bitten while on a training exercise last year......dog handler as I recall, wading thru heavy palmetto/sandy oak ridge terrain......impossible to see ones feet..........as I recall neither he nor any with him saw the snake. Spent a few days in the hospital tho.

Friend lost a beagle to a large diamondback last year.....dog bled out before he could be gotten to a vet, fang marks were over 2 1/2 inches apart. Mostly tho, in my experience, these Florida diamondbacks will try to avoid you if they can.....now moccasins are a different proposition, they'll not move, can and will bite underwater, and if irritated sufficiently WILL come at you.

Some doubt that last, but I personally witnessed a friend try to kill one about a foot long on a sandy road by stomping it...he failed and when he removed his boot it literally ran him back about ten feet against the back of his truck whereon he stomped on it again.....he looked at me and asked what he ought to do & I handed him my pocket knife suggesting he cut off the loose end before he moved again.

Far as biting underwater goes, I had an acquaintance that used to stand hunt on a dog lease we had. He would wade thru a swamp to a high pine island to his setup & stepped on a moccasin underwater. The bite penetrated his knee high rubber boots and caused extreme tissue damage. When I saw him again the next season he was STILL limping, his foot was emaciated and the skin look almost translucent!.....

Best protection is probably a good set of knee high boots and considered caution as to where one sits or places ones hands....My understanding is that most of the bites in this part of the country involve folks gardening.

Regardless of what the snake lovers say, my take is that if the animal is close enought to damage me or mine, then it's history!

[jaysouth]

I go out of my way to avoid water moccasins. We had this yuppie kayaker get bitten on a finger over on the Buffalo River last summer. He spent a week in Vanderbilt with multiple surgeries. They managed to save his hand. He had two doses of anti-venom at $12,000 each.

As far as I know, that is the only water moccasin bite in Tennessee in serveral years.

Wonder if he was wearing one of those $700 spandex yuppie kayaker costumes I see more and more of on the rivers?

[Sergei Mosin]

The day before I graduated high school, one of my classmates - someone I'd grown up with, gone to school with all the way through, played ball with - went swimming in the local lake. He swam into a group of water moccasins and they killed him.

Ours had been the only class in years not to lose someone along the way. We thought we'd made it through. We were wrong.

[langenc]

I have a pair of Redwing 17" boots that I have worn for the last 20yrs(they almost drowned me in a river about 15yrs ago), but they have just about had it. The tops are still great, the bottoms are completely shot. I think that I will order a pair of the Chippewa boots and keep going. It is just too thick and there are too many snakes for me to be comfortable walking about in the area that I live without boots or leggings (used leggings exclusively many years ago and before they were "gaiters").


Check with Redwing as they may have a 'boot rebuild' program. You would get them rebuilt for about 1/2 what new one cost.

[MCgunner]

Moccasins....reminds me of "Lonesome Dove".

[wrs840]

I got hit by a copperhead once, it felt like being swatted in the calf by a grown man swinging a broom-handle as hard as he could muster. I was wearing jeans and ankle-high leather boots. I had two fang punctures, but it injected no venom. Just hurt mildly for a couple days.

This is why I don't like copperheads: They're cranky, typically stand their ground rather than fleeing immediately, and have no rattle to warn with, so their first "warning" is usually a strike. The good news is that adult copperheads often don't waste venom on a "warning" strike. 50/50 chance, or so I've read.

[a-sheepdog]

I like snake boots as they cover my foot area as well as above the foot. Gaiters are okay, but I feel better with a complete boot. I have a pair of Rocky Snake Boots, very comfortable, but extremely warm in the summer.

[jrdolall]

I have a buddy that tried to hit a copperhead with a hard rake a few years back. The rake hit a rock which shot back and hit the guy in the shin knocking him to the ground. When he looked up and could get the tears out of his eyes he saw the snake curled around the rake and coming toward him. He threw the rake in the woods and had to half crawl up the trail to his house where he lay on the couch for several days with a severely bruised shin bone. He leaves the rake where it fell to remind him to leave snakes alone unless they are a menace and he never did see where the snake went.

[BP Hunter]

I have been wearing my Rocky snake boots that reach up just a little below my kneefor 10 years.

Around Oct. last year, I was walking along a small river coyote hunting, when I stepped on something that felt like wet mud. I ignored it and took a few steps forward. But then I heard the rattle and looked back. A rattlesnale:what::what:! My body turned cold when I realized what it was. Though it never took a bite at me, I was glad I was wearing these boots.

[Readyrod]

Don't rubber boots work against snakes? I've heard that that's what they wear in Latin America. I always thought that my farm boots would work well.
Here in Japan they have a lot of snakes, it's the most common roadkill I've seen while cycling.

[ApacheCoTodd]

I've been bitten several times with skin punctures and had not one significant envenomation to date though one incident lead to a very hairy infection.

Most recently, my Daisy (who last appeared in a thread about shotguns where I touched on her almost (mere feet) getting taken down by Mexican Greys) was tagged 4+ times by a sidewinder that had let my two other dogs and my wife step right over it. We were stepping through a narrow wash on a single track and I had called Daisy to stop as I saw she was molesting some burrs up around her ears. As it happens, she stopped dead in the bottom of this very narrow and very shallow wash and directly on top of a partially buried sidewinder.

The buzz-worm started striking her just as I bent to her ears and she part leaped and part got tossed outa the wash but I wanted to kill the snake to take it to the vet in case I couldn't ID it - it hadn't moved in a sidewinder's very specific way yet - and also, I knew from experience that it is ironically very difficult to move successfully out of a rattlesnake's strike zone with out getting hit. They are remarkably forgiving if you don't get in that zone but once there, well, they hold a grudge.

So anyhow, I'm trying to get the stomp on this rascal while simultaneously not fall on the edges of the wash or have my luck run out in the envenomation department and watched this beast repeatedly hammer my Army desert boots with no (later determined) punctures and no apparent attempts to strike higher up my leg. The strike marks on the boot and the venom discoloration (will actually start to break down the leather) were an eye opener! When the snake finally sidled off at afterburner speed, identifying it by movement and an urgency to scoop Daisy off to the vet changed my priorities.

So, there's a quick run down on my having been bit from the Pacific coast to central Texas and having had lots of luck but seeing no particular need to over dress. Although, had I suffered Daisy's wounds and having seen the relative treatments of doctors, veterinarians and my own SF medics... Were I to get envenomated and don't have an SF medic around - I'd sure be wanting a vet.

Others have had very different and horrendous experiences on their one and only encounter but I just thought I'd throw this out there.

Now, Coral Snakes, Moccasins, Timber Rattlers... They're a whole other degree of squiggly Hell!

[MCgunner]

Don't rubber boots work against snakes?

The bigger rattlers and moccasins I've killed had hypo needle fangs that would go through rubber like a hot knife through butter. Get some kevlar. I don't even trust heavy leather.

I have done a lot of wade fishing here on the gulf coast. Stingray's are a hazard. They make zip on kevlar leggings for this, too, that cover the top of the boot as well as up the leg. This could work for snakes, but if I get some, it'd be for wade fishing. I just do the fisherman's shuffle and have never been hit. But, it could still happen even shuffling. I could shuffle right in to a stinger. That would not be fun. I'll keep my kevlar lined snake boots for snakes.