Bigjay73
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The dog thread made me think back on shorts pooping experiences I've had with venomous snakes. Anyone have any good stories or cool snake sightings?
Snake stories
- Thread starter Bigjay73
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Mallardsx2
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Bigjay73
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Dayum
Redmt
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We've killed 5 rattlers in the last 2 weeks. I got one that damn near got me.
2ski
Well-known member
I was running my dog hunting a few years ago at a spot where I drove by earlier and thought thats snake country. On my way out I passed a patch of brush and though I should hunt it just for like 5 minutes. I was watching my dog and looked down to see a snake pull its heat back from my pant leg. I jumped back. It rattled. Then I shot it and got the heck out of there. I'm not sure if it got my pant leg or what happened. I think maybe I stepped on it?
When I was a kid, my dad was planting a new ground field for someone an my job was to drive around and get logs out of the field. I went to get one large log and had to put my hand all under it to get it up on the tractor. When I went back there was a cottonmouth under it right where I put my hands. .410 took care of him.
Last year my brother caught this guy:
Last year my brother caught this guy:
Wildabeest
Well-known member
Had just moved into a new house that backed up to woods and a gully that drained into a local reservoir. We’d moved some outdoor stuff over prior to moving in, and it was sitting at the edge of where the newly seeded yard met the woods. A few weeks after moving in, my wife wanted to start outdoor decorating, so she asked me to get the planters that were out there. I go to the edge of the yard where the stuff had been sitting and reach down to pick one up, but it’s stuck in the mud a bit. So I reposition and get a better grip, and then I hear the rattle - not a rattlesnake, but a copperhead buzzing his tail in the leaves. He was lying right next to the planter, and probably 8” from my hand. I quickly let go and stepped back. He never struck, thank goodness, because he could have easily nailed me. We had a 2 year old and new baby at the time, so I grabbed the shovel that was leaning against the tree and put a quick end to him. He was about 18” long and really fat. Didn’t have cameras in our phones back then, so no pic.
Fast forward 15 years and I’m now living more in the city. There were still lots of copperheads there though. Got home from work one night and took the dog for a quick walk. On the way back, there’s a baby copperhead laying half on the sidewalk right in front of the house. Didn’t have a shovel handy, so I did the next best thing and drove the heel of my Allen Edmonds dress shoes into its head. Problem solved. Notice the green tail - dead give-away that it’s a baby copperhead.
As a general rule, I don’t kill snakes. Unless they are close to the house and there’s kids involved. There’s a decent number of Great Basin rattlers around my current place, and I just leave them alone. Put my dog thru rattlesnake avoidance training, and he now alerts on them long before I see or hear them. This one got run over by a car in front of my house last summer. Notice the flat spot in his midsection
.
Fast forward 15 years and I’m now living more in the city. There were still lots of copperheads there though. Got home from work one night and took the dog for a quick walk. On the way back, there’s a baby copperhead laying half on the sidewalk right in front of the house. Didn’t have a shovel handy, so I did the next best thing and drove the heel of my Allen Edmonds dress shoes into its head. Problem solved. Notice the green tail - dead give-away that it’s a baby copperhead.
As a general rule, I don’t kill snakes. Unless they are close to the house and there’s kids involved. There’s a decent number of Great Basin rattlers around my current place, and I just leave them alone. Put my dog thru rattlesnake avoidance training, and he now alerts on them long before I see or hear them. This one got run over by a car in front of my house last summer. Notice the flat spot in his midsection
.
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Wildabeest
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And this was a cool find a couple of springs ago out hiking near my place. I had no idea that any boa’s were native to the Rocky Mountains. The dog didn’t alert on this guy - walked right over top of it as it was laying on the trail. I moved him off the trail onto a rock so he wouldn’t get run over by a mountain biker. Super docile snake. I was also surprised to see a snake out that early in the spring, but apparently the rubber boas are the first to come out.
Turkeygetpwnd38
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When I was in college I would regularly take my younger cousin (12ish) hunting. We went turkey hunting one afternoon, I was coming from the gym so just threw leafy pants over my gym shorts. We were walking down a leaf littered trail, me in front, and I turned around to check on him. He was ghost white and pointing at my legs. I looked down and there was a copperhead hanging off my leafy pants! He had struck me and fangs got caught in the pants so was just hanging there. I leapt about 4 feet in the air, grabbed him by the tail, yanked it off and threw it into the woods 
I’ve had a ton of close calls with snakes but that was probably the closest.
Now that I think about it, he might just be bad luck. I took him bear hunting 2 years ago and we got charged by a grizzly in an area I’ve hunted for 5-6 years and never even seen a grizzly before then!
I’ve had a ton of close calls with snakes but that was probably the closest.
Now that I think about it, he might just be bad luck. I took him bear hunting 2 years ago and we got charged by a grizzly in an area I’ve hunted for 5-6 years and never even seen a grizzly before then!
Hem
Well-known member
This one got in the garage and nearly tagged my wife.
I stepped on one in the tall grass one year on the same property.
Ive seen plenty but no close calls other than above.
I stepped on one in the tall grass one year on the same property.
Ive seen plenty but no close calls other than above.
rookieforever33
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I live in rural Illinois and sometimes have seen snakes regularly, sometimes dont see one for a few years. But unless I run into a type of rattlesnake that is VERY rare and not very venomous I will not come across any that can really hurt me. It doesn't make paying high taxes any easier, but at least it is a little peace.
Redmt
Well-known member
A friend in VA got tagged a couple weeks ago by a copper head
Haven't seen a snake around here for years. Too much farm ground being worked I guess. Too far from the timber for anything. Not much but rabbits and squirrels with the occasional possum or raccoon. Foxes and coyotes make a swing through during the night looking for food but are rare to actually see. Where in the state are you?
No snake encounters of the poison kind. I'm not convinced there really are any!
When we were on one of our trips to visit @Bill Zent and his wife, we went riding our ATVs into the mountains on a snake hunt. Nothing. Never have spotted one. Maybe I'm just not lucky? Or am I VERY lucky? 
There are more than a few people who will tell you I'm a snake guy. Not that I'm really into snakes, even though I do think they're pretty cool, but that for some reason me n snakes just seem to click. Aside from the fact that I come across snakes out in the field with more frequency than anyone else you've ever met (people always scoff when I say this, then they come to learn), I come across venomous and unique snakes with the same high frequency, and I never have any issues, and can interact with them quite freely. I generally don't interact with them but it's fun to know it's possible.
Story time!
Once I was fishing a surprisingly good trout creek in the high country on the east side of the Cascades in WA state. The "trail" ran along the side of the mountain above the creek - way above the creek. It was a scramble and a half up and down, with huge downed trees and lots of short shrubby growth everywhere (all of the east Cascades is a giant fire scar). At the bottom where the creek was, there was still a giant pile of downed trees and boulders to climb over to get to the water. On one of these trips down, a blind-faith drop from downed tree to the boulder below plopped me approximately four inches from a little rattlesnake doing his sunbathing. I felt the thud of landing on the boulder and heard the buzz of the rattle at the exact same time, and nearly had a heart attack. I took a panicked step and felt something under my boot - let me tell you, I feel panic fairly often, but this was a serious strike of fear that hit me in the chest like a fastball - and then nearly died of relief when I looked down and saw I was standing on a bit of stick. I saw a glimmer of snake tail darting off into the vegetation, and just stood there for a second reflecting on what had just happened. I was wearing shorts and low-top boots a solid hour hike from the car at the bottom of a mountain on a weekday in the middle of nowhere in the east Cascades of WA. If rattly boy had decided to defend his boulder, ol' texwest might not be here to tell you stories today. Or he might be doing it missing a leg, at any rate.
Shorter story: Years after that incident, and countless other interesting snake encounters including tub snake, box under bed snake, and accidental snag snake, me and my boss at the time were on a trip out to Glendive from Helena in early September. I wanted to stop and see Pompey's Pillar, as I'm a Lewis and Clark junkie, and gave her fair warning that there was a high likelihood that we would come across at least one snake while at the monument. She laughed, and then stopped laughing as soon as we came across the 5' rattler off the side of the hiking trail about 100' feet from the little staircase that takes you up the pillar. The next Monday, there was a toy springy snake waiting on my desk. I still have it.
Shortest story: One time I was fishing a washed out bridge right after a flood in Kansas, and the water was still pretty unmanageable. I was sitting at the edge of the bridge where there was a little eddy, and a little water moccasin or whatever it was popped his head up right next to me holding a wee little catfish in his mouth. He looked at me for a second, then came out of the water, and slithered right past me with his fish into the grass. Knowing he was a midwest snake, I'm sure he said something along the lines of "ope, just squeezin' past ya here" in his own snake way.
Story time!
Once I was fishing a surprisingly good trout creek in the high country on the east side of the Cascades in WA state. The "trail" ran along the side of the mountain above the creek - way above the creek. It was a scramble and a half up and down, with huge downed trees and lots of short shrubby growth everywhere (all of the east Cascades is a giant fire scar). At the bottom where the creek was, there was still a giant pile of downed trees and boulders to climb over to get to the water. On one of these trips down, a blind-faith drop from downed tree to the boulder below plopped me approximately four inches from a little rattlesnake doing his sunbathing. I felt the thud of landing on the boulder and heard the buzz of the rattle at the exact same time, and nearly had a heart attack. I took a panicked step and felt something under my boot - let me tell you, I feel panic fairly often, but this was a serious strike of fear that hit me in the chest like a fastball - and then nearly died of relief when I looked down and saw I was standing on a bit of stick. I saw a glimmer of snake tail darting off into the vegetation, and just stood there for a second reflecting on what had just happened. I was wearing shorts and low-top boots a solid hour hike from the car at the bottom of a mountain on a weekday in the middle of nowhere in the east Cascades of WA. If rattly boy had decided to defend his boulder, ol' texwest might not be here to tell you stories today. Or he might be doing it missing a leg, at any rate.
Shorter story: Years after that incident, and countless other interesting snake encounters including tub snake, box under bed snake, and accidental snag snake, me and my boss at the time were on a trip out to Glendive from Helena in early September. I wanted to stop and see Pompey's Pillar, as I'm a Lewis and Clark junkie, and gave her fair warning that there was a high likelihood that we would come across at least one snake while at the monument. She laughed, and then stopped laughing as soon as we came across the 5' rattler off the side of the hiking trail about 100' feet from the little staircase that takes you up the pillar. The next Monday, there was a toy springy snake waiting on my desk. I still have it.
Shortest story: One time I was fishing a washed out bridge right after a flood in Kansas, and the water was still pretty unmanageable. I was sitting at the edge of the bridge where there was a little eddy, and a little water moccasin or whatever it was popped his head up right next to me holding a wee little catfish in his mouth. He looked at me for a second, then came out of the water, and slithered right past me with his fish into the grass. Knowing he was a midwest snake, I'm sure he said something along the lines of "ope, just squeezin' past ya here" in his own snake way.
CRJR45
Well-known member
When we’re living in our RV on the rim canal of Okeechobee we kept the boat on our RV site .
I would take the cover off and lay it on the pavers while we used the boat and cover the boat at night .
My wife and I had the dog on the boat and had been fishing on the trolling motor for hours .
I went to move on the big motor but as I committed to setting down I saw a Coral snake beside the seat .
Red touching yellow went through my mind as I calmly stood up and directed Kim and Smitty to move to the front of the boat .
The snake moved behind my seat , so I told her there’s a poisonous snake in the boat but please stay calm .
I had a 18 inch long pair of hemostats in one hand and the dogs dish in the other and it was on , for about three minutes before I snagged it and threw it overboard.
Then I got the shakes and Kim started crying , we loaded up and went home .
When I saw the cover on the ground I figured it out .
This is another one I found while mulching around the pool .
I would take the cover off and lay it on the pavers while we used the boat and cover the boat at night .
My wife and I had the dog on the boat and had been fishing on the trolling motor for hours .
I went to move on the big motor but as I committed to setting down I saw a Coral snake beside the seat .
Red touching yellow went through my mind as I calmly stood up and directed Kim and Smitty to move to the front of the boat .
The snake moved behind my seat , so I told her there’s a poisonous snake in the boat but please stay calm .
I had a 18 inch long pair of hemostats in one hand and the dogs dish in the other and it was on , for about three minutes before I snagged it and threw it overboard.
Then I got the shakes and Kim started crying , we loaded up and went home .
When I saw the cover on the ground I figured it out .
This is another one I found while mulching around the pool .
Wildabeest
Well-known member
Rare to ever see one of those, let alone two.
CRJR45
Well-known member
Yeah , and I learned after the fact that their fangs are in the back of the mouth so they’d have to actually chew on you to release the venom, but still creepy.
Wildabeest
Well-known member
Yep. They’re actually more closely related to cobras than any other US native venomous snake - which are all pit vipers.
CRJR45
Well-known member
The one in the boat was about 18-20 inches long , the one in the picture is a little longer .
