Annual Warning to the boys of the South

[redman]

Seems like every year I post this warning as I have a bad encounter with a slithering reptile every year; lucky me. Today I was out getting a couple of sticks of fire wood and out of the wood pile and out came a snake. I moved away very quickly and grabbed the garden hoe and chopped up the copper head in to four pieces. Please be careful if the copper heads are out the cottonmouths are out and about. Remember they will jump in your boats and will fall out of trees to some place that they feel is warmer than where they are at.

Please be careful don't want to lose any of you to a nasty snake bite.


Redman

 

[Fatman]

Thanks Redman - we have a northern rattler but you don't see many of them.

 

[Hawnjigs]

I guess we're too far south for the widowmakers. Here's our only indigenous snake.
View attachment 6
But, if I hit the mainland this year, I'll keep an eye out and ear open for the tail shakers. Never actually seen one yet.

 

[Jig Man]

Yep, I had my snake boots on yesterday... Got up to 90 degrees here.

 

[Lost Pole]

Saw this fella a couple weeks back. Still undecided as to what exactly it was. Doesn't help that the pic is from my phone and sucks

View attachment 7

 

[redman]

Fatman I have encountered both the Northern Timber rattler and the Prairie Rattler the only two deadly snakes we had in Iowa. Lucky both times they were more scarred of me than I was of them. Prairie Rattlers are very rare and just to see one is a to be a red letter day. Here in the south I see snakes on a monthly basis. Most are just common nonpoisonous kind. But there are a lot down here that will bite and cause a lot of pain.

Keith looks like St. Patrick may have visited the Islands driving all the venomous snakes into the sea. What is the name of that little guy. Didn't think that you had any snake out there. It looks like one down here we call slow worms.

Redman

 

[Fatman]

As big as that thing looks in the pic Lost you'd think someone let a python or boa loose!!!!!!!

 

[redman]

Doug you need to come down and see how big even the rat snakes grow down here. Most of the snakes look like boa's. They scare the heck out of you. And the first time you get one in the boat with you , you will understand why we carry a gun in the boat with us. Got to get you down here when we have the alligators running among the jug lines when we are trying to fish for catfish. Now that is exciting.

Redman

P.S. That's why I said boys of the South. Don't think that you Yankees know what we are sometimes up against RM.

 

[LRB]

I'll take a rattlesnake anyday over a Copperhead...!!...:exclamation:




ML..

 

[ragged edge]

Had a friend of mine get bit by a copperhead 1 1/2 years ago while out in his garden. Very painful to the tune of $54,000.00 medical bill. Little girl got bit by a prairie rattler last year about 40 miles from Albuquerque. That medical bill was $86,000.00 and included use of helicopter. The town took up a donation on that one. Yea, so be careful wherever you are!

 

[Radtexan]

Thanks for the heads up Redman...Luckily living up here on the caprock,We dont have to deal with snakes....

Only bad thing all my lakes and hunting spots are off the cap ....

 

[StumpHunter]

It is the time of the year around here that you have to watch out for the pissed off snakes. Thanks for the warning and reminders.
I'm glad that the worst snakes are now going under ground around here, the snow snakes. No mouths or eyes but can kill you faster than any of the others around here,

 

[eyecrosser]

Thanks for the heads up. Too cold here in Kansas yet but spring fishing and turkey season right around the corner. Plenty of snakes to be had here in the land of oz. We have Copperheads, Prairie Rattlers, Timber Rattlers, and a few rare Massissauga Rattlers. Copperheads are the most common but have seen a couple Timber Rattlesnakes while out chasing gobblers the last few years. Watch your step out there everyone.

 

[redman]

Dang it surprises me that so many of you have the Prairie rattlers. They are a protected species in Iowa and quite small by the standards down here. Them Timber Rattlers can get big and we have a few in this territory. Most of our snakes are Copperheads and Water moccasins or Cottonmouths. We have the coral, Rat , Chicken, King and a varitiey of racers. Throw in some garder snakes and a few water snakes and you can see why I have to be on guard . If it bites its some where on Caddo lake including Big Foot.

Glad that you guys are on guard and hopefully at the end of the season you will all be ok.

Redman

 

[Hawnjigs]

Redman, its called a Hawaiian blind snake. Looks like an earthworm and you have to look real close to see the scales and tiny forked tongue.

 

[redear]

I believe you would be in much more trouble with a rattlesnake bite!! I know several guys that have been bit by a copperhead, and while it was really painful and didn't wan't to heal, it didn't threaten their lives.

 

[JSC]

Don't get me started on snakes & gator stories ..... all my life I have had a battle with them ... I am afraid I would hurt some one bad who messed with me with a snake .... Not that we did not have enough different kinds here in NW Fl ... now we have to look out from some of these "Exotics" like Boas & Pythons ... nuts turned them loose and in some areas they have spread big time.

 

[AtticaFish]

I don't mind snakes..... too much ......but i'll take the chance of frostbite over the chance of snake bite and just stay North. Have come across some very large black rat snakes out hunting Morels in the spring before. Timber and Massissauga were native here at one time but no longer a population. Hill country of SE Ohio is spose to still have a few.

 

[Ron Don]

For me it's the cotton mouths! If by water there's one every 10 feet and it will strike at you for no reason. Rattlesnakes seem to be more laid back from my experience with them.

I think the little ground rattlers that look like worms are more dangerous particularly with children. They think the snakes are worms and play with them. Been alot of kids killed this way.

 

[Hawnjigs]

Y'all have struck some fear in me! I'm with AtticaFish - think I'll stick to vacationing north of Texas.

Have any of you been bit? What's it like?