Copperhead + Timber Rattler

-
Years ago I did my Army basic training at Ft. Polk, Louisiana. I'd just been on post a couple of days and picked up the post newspaper to find a photo on the front page of a rattlesnake some guy caught while out on bivouac. He was holding it by the head with his arm straight out from his body and the snake's tail was dragging on the ground.
Found out there were four types of snakes on post: rattlers, copperheads, water moccasins and coral snakes. All poisonous.
Fun place not to be!
 
RustyRatRod said:
We are lucky here in Georgia to have two of the best possible snakes you can have as an indigenous species. The King snake and the Eastern Indigo snake. Both of them are immune to and eat every single venomous snake in North America and neither is poisonous. The Eastern indigo snake is protected by local, state and federal law. Both of them get to be about the same size, roughly 10-12 feet long fully grown.
Click to expand...
older post, but--eye mate, that's a snake !
 
Back in Memphis, the Copperheads were common but usually not very big (2'-3' long).

I did once run across a 6' Cottonmouth while fishing a local pond. It was coiled up in the grass on the North side of the pond and I almost walked right over it. I got close enough to see the big triangular shaped head and when it saw me, it reared up about 3-1/2' tall. I swung my 7' fishing rod at it and smacked it's head and it dropped and took off into the water.

I left and didn't make a single cast. Those damned things will chase you if you get in their territory...and they are fast. They can also strike while reared up making your upper body a target.

Here in PA, the timber rattlers are mostly up in the mountains and at least they warn you with their rattle when you get close. Move slowly and deliberately and you get a warning.

Oh yeah...always wear thigh-high snake proof gaiters when tromping around in their territory. PA timber rattlers don't strike higher than that.
 
Personally, I'd rather have a few snakes on my property than hundreds of dirty rodents. The diseases those things carry are no joke.
 
Last fall I moved my Valiant and Dart from my brother's house near Springfield to my new house outside KC. Neither car had moved in years.

Before I moved the Valiant (which has a rather rusty floorboard and trunk pan), I cleaned out the blacksnake skins in the trunk. This is half of them.

ForeSkins.jpg
 
So I live in the Chattanooga Valley of the Tennessee River Valley and our local is the water moccasin. I was on a hike through a canyon with the girlfriend one day and she almost stepped on one that was sitting on the trail curled up and extremely well camouflaged. On our way back through that same area I stopped off on a rock to piss and noticed something moving where I was peeing it was 3 water moccasins curled up in a leaf pile when I stepped off the Rock and turned around there was one more right by my foot that I stepped on the tail of. I quickly pulled my foot back up as the snake struck luckily it did not chase me and simply went under the rock I had been standing on. Suffice to say the girlfriend has not wanted to go back hiking on that trail.
 
My Dad was driving our caterpillar backwards one day and when he looked forward again there was a big rattle snake coming down the left track and it was ALL pissed off and coiled for a strike.
He jumped clean off that caterpillar in one motion and watched as the snake ended up getting dumped off the off the back of the track and run over.
I asked him if the cat had an ejection seat because it sure looked like it when he came off there, but he said that was because his butthole puckered so fast it shot him right out of the seat. :D
Funny as hell, and we laughed for years about that.
 
Years ago they were expanding the highway and bypassing Corning. To do this they had to chisel out the hillside above the city. Months later the people of Corning were having issues with Timber Rattlers. Yes, we even them in Upstate NY.
 
barbee6043 said:
the king snake RRR he is KING! he will eat any snake ( maybe his mate????)... ha

years back I had a car buddy, he was always draggin home some kinda mopar. he called and said he had a real nice 69 runner, roller. cheap!!!! (my kind), so I hook up the traer to make the 4 hr run, I get there before he gets home from work, i'm crawling all under and over and around it. real solid car, i'm ecited. staright but there is an obvious fresh bullet hole in the side of the left rear quarter.

he drives up as I crawl from under it. tells me how he got it home and found a BIG copperhead in the trunk. a big honkin 44 mag made the hole. Ha
Click to expand...
I keep a 410 pistol just for this purpose. Rattlesnakes are very common out here.
 
Ben Drinkin said:
I keep a 410 pistol just for this purpose. Rattlesnakes are very common out here.
Click to expand...
we used to shoot water mocasins w/ a 22 long rifle for sport when I was a kid. seemed like there was always some to shoot. use a 38 snub nose w/ birdshot in it now, very effective, altho a little expensive.
 
I almost stepped on a moccasin yesterday. I was going to throw a cantaloupe Rhine into the pond and that rascal scared me good. He got shot two seconds later. I hate snakes. We've had a lot of rain lately. They are everywhere.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top