It's dripping snakes around here.

[roo_ster]

I don't have any particular dislike for poisonous snakes and I positively love having some of the non-poisonous types around. Non-poisonous snakes are better neighbors than rats.

In the wilds, I generally give snakes of any sort a wide berth & don't mess with them unless they find themselves in/around my camp site. Non-poisonous ones get shooed off into the brush. Poisonous snakes get whacked by Mr Machete or Mr. E-Tool. I'd rather not whack them, but I don't wamt me/mine getting bit.

Poisonous snakes around the house are not tolerated. The crack-house metaphor is apt.

 

[scout26]

If those snakes will eat rabbits, I'll take 'em. This morning at 5:30 am there was some sort of rabbit seminar or conference in my backyard, counted 11 and may have been some under the Norwegian spruces on the hill.

El Tejon, What ?!??! you didn't go out and hug them while singing "Kum-By-Ya"....

The one Good Thing (c) about Northern Illinois.....Lots of Snow....therefore....No big and/or poisonous snakes or (shudder) big ugly hairy spiders.....

 

[bubbygator]

When I was on a scout camping trip about 50 years ago in Indiana, the campsite was close to a run-off creek from a dammed lake. The semi-dry creekbed had a lot of flat rocks. Boys being boys, we found some small cotton-mouths there (about 1 - 2 feet long) hiding under the rocks; & we determined to "clear the area". A bunch of us set-up an assembly line - two boys took turns turning a flat rock using a medium stick & the pick end of an fire-axe (have no idea how that got there); another using a longer stick to flip the exposed snake out of the watery rocks up onto dry ground (the killing field), cause it was hard to hit them down in the creekbed among the rocks; & 3 boys using shovel, a heavy stick, & a machete to whop 'em. We also had about 3 boys just spotting so we didn't step in a wrong place. We killed about 18-20 in about 2 1/2 hours. I had NEVER seen so many snakes in one place before or since. We didn't bury them - just left them for the crows.

Of course, we never did tell the Scout Masters.

 

[1911 guy]

Cooking Warning

When cooking any venemous snake, yeah, i've done it, cut the head off about six inches down. Your stomach can and will process the venom safely, but if you've got a cut lip, sore, etc...you get the idea. Wash well after skinning.

 

[bearmgc]

Snakes YUK! Cooked snakes UMPF BLEGH....sorry, just the thought of them. Never could eat eel either. I never ran into any as a kid, and only saw 2 as an adult, hence just not used to them I guess.

 

[Nnobby45]

More snakes, please

I'd rather have snakes. This silly rabbit survived the winter by eating my Austrian Pine! Snowed two feet in Reno. That's bad enough, but then him and his friends would sneak out and eat the wild bird feed I put out for the quail. They never did fatten up enough for the pot.

 

[RiverwinoIA]

im quite fond of non-poisonous snakes too, always try to catch em to check em out, my fishing buddies on the other hand, absolute pansies... as a matter of fact last night i ambushed a little tiny water snake as he cruised up the brushpile i was watching him from. he was about 8 inches long, but still managed to get his teeth in me... didnt notice until i saw blood though.



"The one Good Thing (c) about Northern Illinois.....Lots of Snow....therefore....No big and/or poisonous snakes or (shudder) big ugly hairy spiders....."

hmm, while kind of agree with the poisonous snake thing (although i have ran into a nice sized timber rattler while climbing a bluff wall near the mississippi, they are quite rare though)

i disagree with the spider bit. once, i was catfishing my local stream, and for some reason decided to sleep the night out there "under the stars", it was a nice night and a good bite after all. well, about the crack of dawn, i wake up to a creepy crawly feeling on my neck/shoulder area. i sleepily brush it away, only to feel a VERY sizeable hairy bug, followed quickly by the MOTHER OF ALL stings. A large "fishing" spider (similar to a wolf spider, on 'roids) had crawled on to me... and bit my neck when i touched him. imagine a wasp sting.... x5.

i would rather have half a dozen water or garter snakes put in my underwear than have one of those bastard spiders on me again. intense searing pain aint my cup of tea.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

"The one Good Thing (c) about Northern Illinois.....Lots of Snow....therefore....No big and/or poisonous snakes or (shudder) big ugly hairy spiders....."

What about snow snakes? They crawl up your leg and freeze your unmentionables.

 

[pete f]

snakes are a good reason I always carry a 3 inch model 10 rb loaded with speer shotshells. not good at a distance, but at ten feet or less they are lethal. This is usually the best way to deal with snakes that pose a threat. and as far as snakes inthe north, the Mississippi river bluffs of Wisc, are notorius for rattler populations.

Pigs are often good "snakers" They tend to do a good job of hunting them and killing them.

 

[skynyrd1911]

snakes

I used to fish from a tube on ponds and small lakes when I used to live in central Oklahoma. Cottonmouths are few and far between out there. I however have given up the tube fishing after moving back to Arkansas, as cottonmouths are PLENTIFUL here.

 

[NHBB]

I live in NH, and only once have I have encountered an extremely aggressive snake. I am not sure what breed, but I was walking down a trail to go fishing, and this thing comes barrelling out and strikes at me missing me by like a half inch on the calf.. I could feel the wind of his attempted strike. he was very colorful, red, black, yellow stripes.. not something you see every day up here. I hate snakes in the wild, but mostly its just garters up this way.

on another note, me and my fiancee just got a ball python last week as she was begging for a pet, and she is a snake lover and loves cats... I will take a snake in a tank rather than a cat anyday lol... they are actually pretty soothing to the soul to handle them and interesting to watch eat. only thing is the pythons are nocturnal, so he just sort of sits there in one place and doesnt move all day til like 10pm

 

[Vern Humphrey]

When that ball python gets big enough, he'll solve your cat problem for you.

 

[CowboyEngr]

In N.E. Oklahoma there is about every American poisonous snake made, except for coral snakes, I guess- - Rattlesnakes, copperheads, and cottonmouths - just depends if your in the hills or along the creek. I have little tolerance for them. ANY snake that is unfortunate enough to let me stumble in close to it, before I see it, is in mortal danger. There may be no rational reason for it, but if can can find a stick, shovel, or hoe, he's dead. Sorry, that's just the way I am, and that's as close to an apology as you'll get from me! If I were to catch some lunatic turning live rattlesnakes loose on my land, I don't know if I'd shoot the lunatic or the snakes first!

 

[Vern Humphrey]

You should have been with me in Singapore. We were under contract to the Singapore Defense Forces and had offices in a multi-use building -- the bottom floor was a snack bar, arms "cotes," administrative offices, and so on. The upper three floors were barracks.

Singapore was building a new armed forces center, so the troops moved out -- taking their snacks with them. The rats then invaded our offices, and the snakes found out about it. We had one snake come into the office and one of out programmers was bitten (fortunately this snake wasn't poisonous). On another occasion, I was going to confer with my counterpart, and heard a rustling in the leaves. I looked back and saw an old black snake headed toward our offices.

I took about two more steps when it hit me, "Wait a MINUTE! This is Singapore. There aren't any 'old black snakes' around here." I chucked a rock at him and he raised up and spread his hood. I kept thinking about the advice in the Singapore Army Survival Manual about spitting cobras while I felt around for another rock.

We also had a case where a python came up through the toilet and bit a man in the men's room at the golf course -- in fact, we had the front page of the Straits Times framed and hanging in the office with the story taking up almost the whole front page.

 

[Art Eatman]

I spent a year in Manila, back in my teens. There was a vacant half-city-block area next to the hobby shop where I regularly hung out. The vacant lot commonly grew up in head-high "cogan" grass. Cogan (kogan?) grass is sorta saw-edged and will really cut you up.

One of the guys from the shop saw a LONG cobra go into the grass. Big-eyed, he called the cops. They got two fire trucks out and burned off the grass. Nobody saw the snake come out, so I guess the problem got solved.

That sort of thing does make one think "flashlight" before wandering about at night.

, Art

 

[Vern Humphrey]

We had an apartment rented for employees in Singapore, and as we wound down the contract, we sent some people home and let the apartment go. Right after that, the Straits Times reported stories of snakes in the plumbing in that building -- and printed pictures of snakes found by the Department of the Environment.

We sent them to the people who had lived in that apartment with great relish.

The stories included interviews with residents. One lady said, "I used to get up at night and go to the bathroom in the dark. Now I turn the lights on and check for bubbles before I sit down."

By the way, the Department of the Environment spokesperson was named Goh Pi Ing.

 

[Art Eatman]

Do NOT use .45ACP Hardball on a sewer rat that's wanting up and out of the toilet.

Yes, it will indeed kill a large rat.

Yes, it will indeed create a notable problem in plumbing repairs as well. HOP: Hard On Porcelain.

, Art

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Do NOT use .45ACP Hardball on a sewer rat that's wanting up and out of the toilet.

You're just waiting for us to ask how you know that, aren't you?

 

[Art Eatman]

In 1949/1950, my mother was a Fulbright Professor to Philippine Women's University in Manila. We lived across the street in an apartment; behind us in another apartment was a couple, Win and Bobbi Smith.

Among other things, he was a shooter. Target with .30-'06, and he also had a 1911.

They had previously lived in Baguio in northern Luzon. The bathroom had a tin-tank of a shower, tile floor, and (luckily) a central floor drain.

Bobbi went into the bathroom, fortunately having turned on the light, and there in the john staring up at her was a large sewer rat. She screamed. Win grabbed the .45 and came to the rescue.

Think "over-penetration"! Porcelain shatters. Blood, water, rat pieces and porcelain all over the floor. Remember the drain? Fortuitous. Facilitated cleanup.

There was the one remaining problem, of course; where does one "go", next?

, Art

 

[Vern Humphrey]

They must have been kin to a couple of guys I knew who were squirrel hunting on the Chatahoochee River in Georgia. They were floating down the river in a Jon Boat, right near the bank, and shooting squirrels with a shotgun.

A snake fell out of a tree into the boat.

Guess what they did?

 

[countertop]

Lots of people seem to think cottonmouth moccasins climb trees and drop into boats, but according to this page - those are actually brown water snakes.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Lots of people seem to think cottonmouth moccasins climb trees and drop into boats, but according to this page - those are actually brown water snakes.

This snake made no attempt to bite anyone -- but managed to sink a jon boat and get two shotguns sunk in the Chatahoochee River.

 

[GunGoBoom]

I'd sure hate to fall out of that canoe while a cottonmouth was swimming around - greatly impairs your ability to fight and/or flee - egad. FWIW, Taurus's website shows that in the 4th quarter of this year, they are introducing a .410 revolver on the tracker frame - I think in 2" or 6" versions. Ha, ha Vern, some real genuises there - shooting shotgun holes in their boat.

 

[22-rimfire]

I hate Cottonmouths! They are some of the meanist snakes that I have ever had the misfortune to be around. I had them crawl 50 yards from a creek just to check me out in Texas. Have seen many many rattlesnakes in South Texas, and they don't really bother me much.

I was doing some work in Eastern Kentucky and in one single day walked up on three rattlesnakes within 100 yards of each other. All were very attentive. (rattle rattle) I decided that it just was not my day and decided to seek a more visible path when tramping around in the woods.

I have never seen a more snakey place than Eastern KY. Rattlesnakes and Copperheads are very common. Have seen lots of them. Fortunately I have never been bitten, but I have had them strike at me. Copperheads--you have to pay attention and not accidentally step on one as they will bite you in that case. I have stepped within inches of them (before seeing them) and not had one strike at me. I have herbatologist acquaintences and they tell me that Eastern KY has a very high snake density. They go there in search of snakes.

I just pay attention where I walk. Never really had much of a problem in the woods. Don't kill any snakes anymore. Have not for 20 years. They occupy an important niche in the food chain. Thank goodness I don't have to deal with Cottonmouths any more, as I would kill them on sight.

 

[1911 guy]

Eastern Kentucky

My family is originaly from Quincy, not far from Oh. or W.Va. I could tell you some stories about the snakes in that area, but you'd think I was lying. Well, only some of the time!