Yeah, well all the insect talk is jes' fine and dandy, but what about snakes?

Got any interesting snake stories?  Hell, I do, after growing up on a farm in West Texas. Most have to do with Diamondback Rattlesnakes, but I've got a few regarding Water Moccasins from my creek-exploring days.

Once, heading out to my cabin on the P. River,
driving down an 8 1/2 mile gravel road, with my
wife, daughter, daughter in law, and granddaughter, we came upon a rattlesnake about seven feet long stretched across the roadway.

I slowed down and pulled up alondside it and it
immediately coiled, started rattling and assuming the position.  I could barely get the girls to look out of the car's windows at the snake, safely a few feet below them!  They kept hollering to drive on!

So with quick thinking I immediately threw open my door on the other side of the care and said I wanted to get a closer look.

In unison, they all shouted 'No!', 'Close the door', 'get back in'- so I reluctantly complied.

A few hundred feet down the road, I mentioned that I certainly hoped that the snake didn't
manage to get into the car while the door was opened.

Immediately, all feet came off the floorboards, followed by even more hollering!

What is it about women and snakes? Is it a Garden of Eden-kinda thing going on, or what?[}:D]

Eric The(Freud,even?)Hun

I heard that there was a Snake in the white house, but his two terms were up.

Wasn't a snake, MarkM. Was a worm.

I was squirrel hunting with a buddy and we were standing there talking when a noticed something, right above his shoulder in a tree was a nice size copperhead, so being the bud I am I told him to look over his left shoulder, needless to say he about dropped a load and I about recieved a buckshot emema for springing on him the way I did!!! Sure did make for some good stories around the campfire though!!!

I grew up a tough farm kid.

The ain't skeered philosophy was me to a tee.

Anyhow..............we had an old fashioned tent revival one summer and just after one service started the crowd started splitting apart just like Moses parting the waters.

Well..........everybody started yelling snake and running in the other direction.  I ran to the snake, and quickly caught it behind the head.

Some well wisher (idiot) then grabbed at it, causing me to lose my hold and to get bitten 2 times.

Luckily it was just a rat snake and I only got a bit nauseous.

But, we did have an old fashioned snake handling to go witht the tent revival.

I recently got home from a business trip, and opened up those drop down attic stairs to THROW my suitcase up in the attic.

Apparently, when I closed the stairs, a snake fell out of the attic, cuz there it was sitting about four feet from my feet.

It was a 4' long black snake. I was pretty sure it was a "good" snake (if there is such a thing) but I wasn't taking any chances.

I shot it with my pellet gun. It bled out in my house. Then I used my 4' cleaning rod to carry it outside.

X--Kill, as a country boy myself snakes look ok to me if the head is removed.

Tent revival an snake handling, and AR's.
What a guy. hee hee hee

Had a Bushmaster chase me and 11 other green guys. He came at us and was very fast, we didnt want to make noise so off we went at full throttle, broad daylight also, about fifty yards away we turned and saw he was gaining on us, we started to shed equipment as we ran. Finally got out of his AO and he relented. What he did not relent was our equipment which was still in his domain. No amount of sneak could get us close enough to retrive it. No one wanted to tangle with it with a machete' so we made some noise and the snake relented command of his AO and died

Yeah........but I ain't up to drinking that stritchnine (sp?) yet.

Think I'll stay with snakes and guns.

garandman,

You'll probably be sorry you killed that black snake.  They aren't poisonous and they actually eat mice and rats... that was probably why he was in your attic.  No food source, no reason for them to be there. We have a lot of black snakes out here.  They scare the crap out of me but I won't kill them.  If I hear of you having a rodent problem... [:D]

When I was young and growing up in N. Calif a friend and I were playing in her back yard, turning over logs and such.  We turned over this one log and there was a rattler all coiled and rattling at us.  We immediately run screaming to the house.  My friend's mom comes out screaming, "What's wrong?" and we barrel past her muttering something about having to get the snake book and identify if it's a rattler or not.  Well THAT set her mom off and she started interrogating us about where it was and we were saying how she shouldn't kill it unless we definately identified it (young biologists that we were).  

By the time we found the book, her mom had already hacked it up with a shovel (still don't know how she did it without getting bit).  She shoveled up the pieces and set them on top of the trash.  For the rest of the afternoon I would go look at the snake and when I got near it, it would open it's mouth as if to bite me...still trying to defend itself.  Weirded me out and made me sad. [:(]

 

[:D]

I'm with thebeekeeper, if I see one I'll either blow it into microscopic pieces or run screaming like a little girl!!

A brief history of my childhood with snakes:
At age 5 I was helping my father water the fields, we had corugates to water one corner, for those of you who don't know what corugated irrigating is, you have a cement ditch with removable metal plates to damm the water up. When you get the water high enough you stick a 4 foot aluminum tube that is bent with an S in it in the water, you work the pipe back and forth in the water with your palm cupping the 2" opening and the suction starts the water flowing through the tube and into the field. Well I wasn't old enough to get that to work so I'd suck on the end of the tube and when I could hear or feel the water coming I'd set the pipe down and the water would come out. Just like swiping gas out of a car with a garden hose. On my second pipe, I'm sucking away and you guessed it, there was a snake in the pipe, yuck!!  My father got me calmed down and said never in a million years would it happen again, so onto pipe #3, you guessed it again, a mouth full of snake!!  My dad laughed so hard I though he'd blown a gasket, when my grandmother found out she was going to get even. She killed a 4' Garder snake and coiled it up on his pickup seat. The only problem is he saw her do it. After she had it set up and was waiting to see him hop in he asked me to go get in the pickup and get something out for him. I'm surprised he didn't have a dent in his roof where I jump straight up after coming face to face with the dead snake.

Death to the snakes
idaho-ar15

They give me the heebie-jeebies. I'd just as soon shoot 'em as look at 'em.

My sister and I (when about 5 or six years old) caught a baby water moccasin.  We hauled it around in a red wagon.  Mom wasn't happy.

I was walking along my uncles lake with a broken piece of cane pole in my hand.The lake was badly infested with snakes of all type.They eat small bass and stuff the lake was recently stocked with.My sister and two female cousins were walking about 15-20 feet behind me.Well I stepped off the bank topick up a piece of trash.
I stepped directly into a BIG nest of snakes.Why your standing in a nest of snakes is not a good time to identify them.So I commence to a wackin.Said wackin was latter descibed as fast and furious.Well instead of killin them it was pickin most up and flingin them into the air.I had more snakes in the air than a M16 has brass on full auto.Unfortunately the snakes went up about 20feet and back 20 feet.Landing with good effect on before mentioned sister and cousins.Its been 15 years and I can still hear the screams!

Had a mad black snake{BIG snake!!!}
chase me last week when I was walking through a
field,it holed up underneath some pipe,and I left.

Walked into a abandonoded barn when I was
a kid and herad a rattle,looked up and ontop
of a ledge above the door was a rattle snake,
I promptly left through another exit.

Also when I was a kid,me and and some friends
conered a cotton mouth in a old culvert when the
creek was down.Luckliy no one was bitten.

I don't get scared if I see them first, it's the not knowing where the hissing's coming from that gets my heart pumping. Last one I killed was with a posthole digger, it was a garden snake. My dad one night called me over to his house, he had a snake by his back porch. So I took my 12 ga 870 Home Defense with me. It was pitch black except for his porch light and when that 870 went off, fire, grass, sticks, stones and pieces of snake flew off into the night. I kill em if their close to the house, don't want them to get in. I got a rock wall I always check for Democrats too.

Same here!!  I had a old post hole digger and it was in 2 pieces. Well went outside and there was a 5ft long copperhead!  And lets say he was wel fed since he was BIG around.   I smacked him a few times and ended up cutting off the head with the post hole digger.  Since I now have a 1yr old daughter I have NO pity for ANYTHING that might constitute a threat.  

My kids were hanging around a home construction site in the neighborhood when one of the Amish carpenters saw a big black snake.  Being the idiot he is, the Amish dude picks up the snake by the tail and whips it, thus breaking its neck.  My kids pick up the dead snake and bring it into the house whereupon they begin posing for photographs with the serpent draped over them.  I still find it hard to believe my five year old daughter would lay a dead snake across her lap so her brother could take a snapshot.

Out hiking with two buddy's and came across a coral snake.  Now I know that the coral and king look the same and that coral snakes aren't found in CA, but I'll be damned if it's stripes weren't red on yellow.

To get to the story:  We were just out having a little shooting in the woods kinda fun. I had just bought my AK, my friend Matt had just bought his SKS, and I loaned Mike an old 20 gauge single shot.  About ten feet in front of us slithers this baby coral (didn't actually know what it was at the time), path was only about three to four feet wide, so in a matter of seconds it had dissapeared into some brush.

On I go hiking down the trail but Matt and Mike stay behind because they want to find the thing, and boy they did too!  Matt empties his SKS into the brush were the snake was hiding, and right after doing so it comes out attacking Mike.  Now being a stupid creature, what it decided to bite at was the end of that 20 gauge barrel- here comes the funny part (I promise).

This is the first time Mike has ever been out shooting, so needless to say his reaction time is a bit slower than a seasoned shooter.  I hear tons of yelling back up the trail so I go running back up.  Mike's just standing there white as a ghost so I start yelling at him, "pull the fuckin' trigger".  I think about the fourth time I said it he woke from his mental coma and let fly just as that snake was taking another bite.  

Never seen anything like it, still cracks me up when I think about it.  [shotgun]

Have always had a fascination with snakes.  Started when I read book and found the scarlet king snake...immune to all other poisonous snake venoms in N America (cept maybe the coral...i don't remember).  I spent years out tromping around looking for snakes hoping to find one.  Never did.  Caught one of just about everything the south has, too many garters and rings, and enough pointy toothed angry snakes to break me of messing with the poisonous ones.

I had a green snake I caught when I was about 10 that I kept for several years...great snake...very pleasant to handle.  Used to keep it in the pocket of my M65 all day.  We had iguanas too.  Needless to say we went through a lot of babysitters.

The only snakes I 'fear' are copperheads.  Sneaky, quiet, and full of bad attitude...and lots of them here in GA.  I live on Lake Lanier and folks here always kill the local watersnakes thinking they are moccasins...they never are though.

If you do find a moccasin....you'd better run...those things are ALL angry!  And territorial too!

peace!