Snake Season: what would you do?

[Butch Crain]

A little lower cost gaiter that I use - http://cspoutdoors.stores.yahoo.net/rasnprga.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Think deflect the snake's bite as opposed to actually "protecting".

I've found that these are very effective in the all important pre-levitationary phase of human/serpent contact.

More satisfying is the post-levitationary phase of liberal applications of a fiberglass ax handle massage to the head, body, and (no)shoulders of the poor misunderstood reptile. Followed soon thereafter by the heating of olive oil in a cast iron pan and repasts of remarkably white meat.

PS: According to the American Red Cross, these steps should be taken in case of snakebite:

* Wash the bite with soap and water.
* Immobilize the bitten area and keep it lower than the heart.
* Get medical help.

[suckhole]

I would immediately pee on the bite. Not because that helps, but because I'd let go down both legs any way. I saw one strike three foot in the air when laid out straight as a board. I missed him with the shovel and he spun and struck nearly as high as the window glass of a full size ford van. I had been in texas for years where there were just rattlers, but recognized the white mouth as it came straight up at my face. I'll never forget what one looks like again. I'm just glad I made the decision to stay in the van to try to get him outta my drive way.

[mb]

A few years ago--myfirst time on the Mulberry--I stopped for lunch somewhere on the bank, away from busy spots. A guy yelled as I and a friend pulled the canoe over that there were "snakes in there." I figured that he was just a phobic and ignored him.

After I sat down to eat I notced MANY small snakes around me, that I did not recognize (I'm sure I met them somewhere! ). When I wanted to get back to the canoe, they coiled or whatever it's called and were in what I'd call "the striking pose." I tossed a small stick in their direction and they seemed all the more agitated. It always worked with copperheads! Finally I spit some cold water on them and they turned tail.

What kind of snakes were these likely to be? I'd never come across such bold little devils. Running into snakes was not new to me. Any snake that I'd come across hitherto had wanted to get away from me more than I cared for getting away from it.

[Cowper]

More than likely what you saw was a clutch of juvinile cottonmouths. They tend to hang out together in their first season. Mom was probably somewhere close by. Cottonmouths are territorial and will bluff as long as they can, to try and make you go away.

DeBo

[JTarver]

And if you don't go away when they bluff, they might very well come after you. Cottonmouths are not afraid like other snakes are, esp. during breeding season. They are also attracted by lights and noise at night. It's great fun to watch frog giggers hoot and holler to "scare away the cottonmouths". :twisted:

We found one caught in the hydraulic at Ed banks on the Cossatot not too long ago. Shannon said they found babies there as well earlier...right where we normally put in too.
I saw the Mother cottonmouth recirculating by the bridge, but thought it was a bicycle innertube from the distance I was it.

We ended up getting her out of the hydro via paddle, and I relocated her so we could launch. Great day on the Tot too...twas a really good level.

Here is some youtube footy of the event.
Joe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23D8JYR7wMw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[RomanLA]

They are also attracted by lights and noise at night. It's great fun to watch frog giggers hoot and holler to "scare away the cottonmouths". :twisted:

That brings back memories. My brother brought me frogging for the first (and only) time. He doesn't use a gig...he catches them by hand. We're wading chest deep in a canal and I'm about to grab my first frog and he says "Wait...it's a snake!". Then he points out the difference in the eyes. I start looking around and there are snakes EVERYWHERE!!! I couldn't get out of there fast enough!

[rynorris]

I don't hike in rice fields anymore, so it is highly unlikely I would get bit by a cotton mouth.

However, when I was battling them underneath levee gates, a shovel would typically pre-empt any type of biting opportunity.

If the cotton-mouth was longer than 4 feet long I prevented any biting attempt by turning to the farm hand next to me and saying, "why don't you go first."

[DeBo]

Ah, that makes me very very sad.

[DMG]

It makes me very sad, too, but that is nature's way. Ecosystems are tough places! My only suggestion to cottonmouths is to not bring fangs to a shovel fight.

~Dave

[rynorris]

It makes me very sad, too, but that is nature's way. Ecosystems are tough places! My only suggestion to cottonmouths is to not bring fangs to a shovel fight.

~Dave

Considering the size of some of the dudes I've tangled with on an early summer morning...the fight was fair. Trust me.

I've never fought the 6+ footers though. I simply lowered the levee gate as they hissed and spit at me. Then I would slowly back away to the nearest bar and start seriously drinking.

[Shark Attack]

I'm with Professor Jones on this one: "I hate snakes"

I try to avoid all three types of snakes. Live snakes. Dead snakes. Sticks that look like snakes

Wes

[suckhole]

So funny! I have to say that I don't go outta my way, but occasionally do risk the 25 dollar fish-n-game fine to make the world safer from an assitudinal snake. Don't care what anybody says, cottonmouth's got attitude. My dear old grampa called them coppermoccisons.

[DeBo]

I shouldn’t get into this and I don’t think anyone cares how I feel about it anyway, but I will only say a couple of things if only to make myself feel better. Rice fields are not an ecosystem and no species is in a fair fight with humans. You always have the option of walking away from a snake, even a cottonmouth.

A lot of people on this board paddle in order to experience the thrill of whitewater and the adrenalin rush of flirting with danger. Our world seems too safe to be interesting sometimes, hence the attraction to drugs, gambling and other high risk behaviors.

The possibility of encountering a venomous snake is one of the few “dangers” we have left in the wild anymore. Killing a snake is just an excuse for getting another kind of thrill. If you really want a thrill, try learning how to capture and handle a “hot” snake. I have done it a few times and it is a real rush.

Herpetology has been a lifelong hobby for me. I enjoy looking for snakes, studying and reading about them and teaching others about them. I also enjoy keeping snakes as pets and I currently own four. I am not the only one who does this.
One of the things that cause anguish among reptile owners is the casual way others discuss killing snakes. I don’t know how many times I have had to listen to a snake killing story after someone found out that I keep snakes.

How would a dog lover feel if every time he told someone about his new puppy they told him a story about how they saw a dog just like that and it barked at them so they clubbed its brains out?

[Jody]

I want to say that the reason I posted this thread is because I do it now annually for the sole purpose of learning and calming my fear of snakes. I find I fear that which I don't understand and so every year now Debbie helps me more and more by teaching me about snakes and showing me that it isn't the snake that is bad as society has taught....it is my own ignorance that has caused my personal fear.

Grant was hiking on our little creek the other day and although he was being mindful he still found himself stepping over a big cottonmouth.

So I asked him what he would have done had he been bitten (as a means of preparation) since we live within 100 feet of a highly populated cottonmouth area. Current research changes protocol and so I wanted to know what the latest first aid/medical advice suggests.

Thanks Debo for helping me overcome some fear and to develop a respect for snakes.

[DeBo]

Thanks Jody and thanks for the thread. Although I know it will always bring up the killing stories, I still appreciate the chance to teach others about snakes. Here is my favorite poem just for you:

D. H. Lawrence
Snake

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,

And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.
He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,

Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,

For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.
And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.
But must I confess how I liked him,

How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?
Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!
And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,

And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.
And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,

And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.
I think it did not hit him,

But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.
And immediately I regretted it.

I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.
And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Taormina, 1923