Cottonmouth

[Txsteader]

This bad boy was in the driveway. One of the biggest we've seen near the house. Sorry for the poor quality....cheap camera and I didn't want to get too close. That's a soda can next to him for scale.

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c1...h/Jun30112.jpg

[pcdreams]

WOW!!

Last weekend we were down doing some cleaning and saw one (not that big thank goodness) thick this year though I bet.

[Red Devil TN]

WOW!! +1

That ain't no lil' snakie!

[paulaswolfpack]

Had a big one fell from the sky in our lincoln with a moonroof when we lived by cove lake in ark. a big egale had it in its claws come flying up over the creekbed needless to say you dont know how fast we got out of the car,and Iam glad one of my kids broke the power conecter to the moonroof.

[Selena]

My mammaw always said if you were in the woods and smelled cucumbers, cottonmouths were near.

[Txsteader]

Originally Posted by paulaswolfpack

Had a big one fell from the sky in our lincoln with a moonroof when we lived by cove lake in ark. a big egale had it in its claws come flying up over the creekbed needless to say you dont know how fast we got out of the car,and Iam glad one of my kids broke the power conecter to the moonroof.

Now that is too bizarre! I would have keeled over dead.

[rwinsouthla]

I hope it now has lead poisoning. That is one species I wish would go extinct. With the pond behind and the bayou about 600 feet away, we get them ALL of the time. I CAN'T STAND THEM!!!!!!!!! I literally pack a little .22 with me with rat shot EVERYWHERE in the yard. Gives me the heebie jeebies.

[MELOC]

Originally Posted by Selena

My mammaw always said if you were in the woods and smelled cucumbers, cottonmouths were near.

they used to tell me he same thing about copperheads.

[famer_manda]

oooooh im scared enough from a distance. i hope you shot him good!

[Wolf mom]

I found a shovel is best for rattlers. Just aim behind the head, spear & grind until they die.
I'd be concerned about shooting a dog with snake shot. Mine have a tendency to stay right out of snake reach & bark.
That shot can kill a person, (if aimed right), you know.

[Txsteader]

Last year, I found one in the same vacinity. I was walking the dog and he'd gone to the edge of the ditch. I just happened to look down in time to see him practically nose-to-nose with one. I yanked his leash and ran back to the house to get DH. The reason the snake hadn't struck.......it had a baby rabbit in it's mouth!

They're common around here also. The largest one we've seen was close to 5' long and the diameter of a baseball bat, honestly. He'd been run over on the highway, thankfully.

[Ravenlost]

We have them something terrible here. Hubby just killed one a couple weeks ago that was about two and a half feet long. He stabbed it with a screwdriver! Had one bite our dog two summers ago and the dog almost died...spent a week in the vet's hospital. It was touch and go as the venom caused his chest to swell up and compress his heart.

[moldy]

I prefer to use a car to kill snakes, although I'm very careful to roll up the windows. Can't have those snake parts flying in, you know. It is hard to get the car in tighter spots where they are though. There are only 3 kinds of snakes I am really scared of: live ones, dead ones, and sticks that look like snakes.

[Unregistered]

I was doing a little research a while back and found out. In the state of Ms. there has never been a recorded death from snake bite. We have all kinds of snakes and I know several people who have been bitten. It would seem like there would have been at least one person killed by snake bite.
There has also never been a recorded human attact by an alligator in the state.

[Txsteader]

Originally Posted by moldy

I prefer to use a car to kill snakes, although I'm very careful to roll up the windows. Can't have those snake parts flying in, you know. It is hard to get the car in tighter spots where they are though. There are only 3 kinds of snakes I am really scared of: live ones, dead ones, and sticks that look like snakes.

Another snake story (I have lots of them)........One day I was coming home from my DDs house. Very rural highway. Late afternoon. Doing about 60 mph. I noticed something ahead in the road that I figured was a broken fan belt or piece of rope. Right when I got up to it, one end of it raised up 2' in the air. It was a coachwhip snake. I later read that they'll do that when threatened and that they're FAST. Still makes my skin crawl to think about it.

[tulsamal]

There are only 3 kinds of snakes I am really scared of: live ones, dead ones, and sticks that look like snakes.

Come on now! Be nice to snakes! I will agree that water mocassins are nothing to fool with. They are the only snake I've ever seen that will advance on a human openly. You can yell or throw things and sometimes they will just keep coming. So I do shoot them with whatever I have handy. But I rarely kill any other kind of snake. A rattler is just telling you that you are too close. Back up and he will usually go on his way. Copperheads are mainly a problem because they hide under things and you uncover them suddenly and scare both of you. Or you step on them in a bunch of fallen leaves because they are so hard to see. (But they are the least poisonous so a quick trip to the ER should make everything OK.)

We get these truly giant black rat snakes in our barn. For years I have let them alone. I'm just under six feet tall and I can pick one up by the head and hold it over my head before the tail will leave the ground. I sometimes catch the really big ones and try to take them several hundred yards into the woods and release them out there. Just seemed like we really did have TOO many of them. But they have really gotten themselves into trouble with my birds. They will crawl into a nest and eat the eggs that the chicken/duck/goose has been keeping warm for weeks. The poor bird will just sit there for several more days with no eggs under it. I caught one of the snakes eating goose eggs. You wouldn't think one of those huge eggs would fit in their mouths but they basically "unhinge" their jaws. Get them all the way inside and then squish them with their bodies. Get all the juices that way.

So I finally got mad at them this spring and shot three of the biggest ones. Gave their bodies to the chickens to eat. Told the smaller snakes they could stick around as long as they really were too small for eggs. But the egg eating has persisted. I've obviously got some big ones still out there. I like catching them and taking them in the house for the wife to "enjoy" but I'm going to have to shoot some more, I guess! Taking them out in the woods doesn't work. I swear I've taken some of the same snakes out there several times! I think you would have to get in a car and take them several miles away!

Gregg

A few years ago I was fishing along the road in an old gravel pit. A large moccasin swam by me towards where a guy I knew was swimming with his wife and her sister. I usually shoot them but didn't want to shoot around people, so I yelled at Gene to tell him it was headed their way. These were hillbilly folks and I watched his wife or her sister ( they were both large women ) get down to where her eyes were level with the water. She made her way over to the swimming snake and grabbed it behind the head. Then she took it by the tail and swung it around over her head and gave it a fling across the road about 30 feet from me. I got in my truck and left. I could just see that snake landing on me.

[Selena]

Eastern rattlesnakes are common in NW IL and there have been a few sightings in my area but not too many. Used to have a lot of garter snakes but I've not seen one in a long time, probably too developed of an area any more.

[big rockpile]

Same as all the rest of them around here Protected.

big rockpile