Yesterday my son and I took a little trip to the local Cabela's in Hamburg, Pa.
Bought a couple things nothing remarkable or noteworthy.
At any rate, when we returned my wife invited him to stay for dinner.
When she went out on the deck to fire up the gas grill, she found a coiled up 4ft black snake.
Our deck is off the dining room, 11 ft off the ground.
Pretty much the last place I expected to come across a snake.
I grabbed a hoe and pushed it off the deck onto the ground below where my son dispatched it with a single shot from his 10mm carry gun.
Generally speaking I have no problem with non poisonous snakes but I don't want them on my deck where the French doors may well be open for an extended period of time.
I can report that a 10mm hollow point is quite adequate for protection from snakes.
My son nearly completely removed the snakes head with a single shot at about 15ft.
I suspect this is the same black snake that the Labs and my wife encountered the day before along side the house.
That one disappeared before I arrived at the scene.