Snake season

LOL

We have had a really good year for rain and sunshine. The snakes are out in droves here. So are the quail, though.

Time to dig the snake shot out of the ammo can again.

Hehe... ironic thread.

I just got back in off our property where my nephew and I killed 2 cotton mouth moccasins. I let two get away from me. I carried an M4-gery (just because I wanted to shoot it) and Harrison carried his .22 long rifle Cricket Rifle.


We have a low of low, wet land. Last summer, I killed 75 cotton mouths, and the summer before was over 80.

My next project? I'm making a 10" Stoeger PGO double-barrel short shotgun once I get around to doing the NFA thing.

Loaded with low-powered #6's in a 12 gauge seems to be a perfect swamp-land handgun.



Happy Snake Season All!


-- John

Seems around here, my favorite double secret bass fishing spots are COVERED with Cotton Mouths. In fact, I got bit while fishing way back when I was a teenager. I then found a trashed 20 gauge O/U & built an NFA (registered) "snake charmer". Upland bird loads work like magic.

Glad you had the forethought to wear snake boots, McG . . .

Around here the most aggressive snake is a Northern Water snake. Our venomous snakes are Copperheads, Timber Rattlesnakes and Masssauguas.

Copperheads are pretty common but incredibly timid. They'll run away from you before you see them. They'll bite, only if they're surprised or can't run.

Massasguas are a small rattlesnake, they only get about 18-24 inches long. They'll stand their ground but you'll get lots of warning to leave them be.

Timber Rattlers are getting rare, but they're here. They can get big, I've seen 5 footer in the woods. While in no way tame they're usually very docile and take a lot of provocation before they''ll even rattle at you. The only exception to this is if they've been flooded or burned out of their normal habitat and then they get pretty testy.

Kansas hasn't had a person killed from a snakebite since 1950 and even then it was an exotic non-native species. They usually don't even administer antivenin as most times the antidote is more dangerous than the bite.

i used to be a land surveyor and wore redhead snake boots
i saw plenty cotton mouths but never had one strike

I will be going on a scouting trip next Saturday and Sunday. What is good medicine (or rather poison) for a rattler? I've heard a 12-Ga. w/ dove shot. Any suggestions on what size? I've heard it's mighty tasty!

I sometimes do "raw land" inspections for various clients and almost stepped on 2 Copperheads in one day last year while on a 6 acre parcel outside of Huntersville, NC. The more I looked around the more of them I spotted, by the time I got back to my truck I had seen about a dozen. When I called the survey company to begin the closing process I warned them about the number of snakes I had seen. My contact at the surveyor's politely told me that snake proof boots are like hardhats, REQUIRED equipment for all employees except the office staff.
I managed to score a pair of pricey Russell snake proof's through him for about 1/2 of retail. Now when I do raw land I'm wearing them religiously and keep them in the truck at all times..... And..... carrying my 3" J frame with snake capsules....

I like shooting snakes with a 12 gauge slug.

Our family had a piece of land running up the side of a hill in northern Kentucky.

My father raised and sold show poultry on that land , mostly chickens. The birds were small and had to be kept confined to large pens to keep the predators out. Fox, 'coon, 'possum, weasel, owls,hawks were some of the problems. The birds did not eat all the food, some was wasted,and left on the ground, that brought in the rats, and then the snakes followed the rats.

The birds had to be innoculated against certain dieases common to fowl.
This required to be in the pens in the dark to be able to pick the birds off the roosts, to administer the vaccines.

The snake encounters were some of the most hair raising ! The most common were the black snakes, they are natures rat control specialists. We tried not to kill or maim them,but the copper heads and occasional rattler could get the old heart pumping. Inside the pens , you had to at stoop
they were 4ft tall max.

With both hands full of birds, in the dark with the lantern on the out side, duckwalking to the door to hand off the birds and finding out that shadow
lying against the bottom rail of the pen was a large poisonus snake

The largest was killed by my uncle a 5 1/2' eastern diamond back with a head about the size of a small fist, very large diameter body ,stubby for a snake with 9 rattles. Copper heads were what you had to be on the look out for they woud lay in some of the nest boxes and when you went to retrieve the eggs for the incubator, they woud take a shot at you if you spooked them.

To see three grown men trying to get out of a 3X3' door at the same time !
I wish the digital video cameras were aroun then

thanks for reminding me. i took one of my dogs out in the woods today, i didn't even think about it. next time, i will load up the single six with magnum plasti-shot and take it with me.

Taurus has the "Judge" which would be a decent snake charmer, if you want something extremely compact. It's a revolver chambered in .410 (and .45 Colt), with a fairly short barrel. They market it as a self defense tool, but it seems to me it wouldn't work too well in that capacity except at extremely short range.

http://taurususa.com/products/gunselector-results.cfm?series=41

For rattlers a 22 rifle or handgun works fine. Never have used "snake shot" even though I carried the first cylinder loaded with it for years. Was always able to shoot em in the head with the second bullet. A shovel, rocks, sticks, or even used a 1X4 once. Anything you can whop em with or cut their head off without gettin bit works.

I like that "step on em and cut their head off with a Buck 110". Sounds kinda fun but I have never had any snake protection except good boots and that just isn't enough for me I guess. Even though I have teased small Sidewinders of 18" or so, in the lower Mojave and had em strike the bottom of my boot. I kinda think that is the extent of my nerve when it comes to rattlesnakes.

Guy I knew did have one in a 5 gallon water bottle and we would try to place our hand against the outside glass and keep it there when the snake would strike. I was never able to do it and would lift my hand off every time, but then we did quit after 3 or 4 times as to not hurt the snake to much.

My family farms for rice in Arkansas, more or less depending on the year. I didn't grow up doing it since my father didn't start until I was in high school, but there was more than one summer that I've walked a couple of miles of levies, spraying herbicide and tossing any number of snakes off to the side with as long a stick as I could find. I was always more frightened of spiders than snakes, but when one jumps out unexpectedly you can bet I'd scream like a little girl.

A pellet gun was all we would use to kill them when we were kids, hunting frogs and crawdads that grew in the irrigation/drainage ditches. That, or a rake or hoe.

jm

It is ALWAYS snake season anywhere that you are in geographical range of snakes and it is warm enough for them to operate, generally above 50-60 degrees.

We found an active copperhead at my place in north Texas in January. In other words, snakes can be active at any time of the year when the conditions are right.

However, snakes usually don't need to be dispatched. They do a lot of good by eating a LOT of rodents.

We are fortunate here in central Ohio; occasional cotton-mouth although we are probably at the northern end of their range or a rare copperhead. Eastern timber rattlers in the southeast part of the state although an occasional might be found in central Ohio. Lots of black water snakes (I call them diamond backed water snakes); as has been noted in other posts they are nasty dispositioned things and the human race is fortunate they are not poisonous.

We have a wide assortment of poisonous snakes here-- Rattlesnakes, Cottonmouths and Copperheads.

I'm only aggressive in killing Cottonmouths. They are the only snake around here that will actively become aggressive and go after a person. The rest usually just want to be left alone.

I've killed several cottonmouths that (to parody Jimbo on South Park) were coming right at me! I've got a pair of boots with holes in the side from one that I didn't see. It broke through the leather, but didn't hit my leg.

So, those are top of my list. However, I had a Chow Chow that was killed by a rattlesnake strike to the next several years ago. I'm kinda soured on those as well.


-- John