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Thread: Snakes; Be careful out there

  1. #1
    Boolit Master
    contender1's Avatar
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    Snakes; Be careful out there

    It has been a week for snake bites locally.
    Copperheads.

    My youngest son's MIL got bit on the thumb yesterday, while pulling weeds around her flowers. She's ok, and is home etc.

    In discussion with the Doc's at the hospital, he said it was the 3rd copperhead bite this past week.

    The one that got my son's MIL,, well, I took care of it for them. It was kind enough to wait on me to get there. It was well over an hour AFTER she got bit that I got there & caught it.

    Everybody be a little more careful out there.

  2. #2
    Boolit Master


    Finster101's Avatar
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    Caught it or killed it? Copperheads, rattlers or any poisonous snake around here only get relocated to a hole if I see them.

  3. #3
    Banned
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    Had a 13 inch coral snake come up on the front porch during a pouring rain last week my red wing boot made it eat some concrete.

  4. #4
    Boolit Master

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    Only good snake is a King Snake IMO.

  5. #5
    Boolit Buddy
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    Watched a pair of black snakes in the yard mating yesterday,, vigorously !! ..lol
    Around here,, if it's got fangs, it dies..Everything else can peacefully go it's own way..

  6. #6
    Boolit Master
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    Growing up and being knotheads we went out snake hunting, Something I don't see or hear our youth doing today.

  7. #7
    Moderator Emeritus / Trusted loob groove dealer

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    Back nearly fifty years ago, myself and some friends used to hunt rattlesnakes. At that time, you could milk them in the field, and then sell the venom to the hospital for very good money per gram. Then the rules changed, and the snakes had to be milked in a sterile environment. We weren't going to haul snakes out of where we hunted them, so we quit doing it.
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  8. #8
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    lots of diamond-back rattlers around where I grew up...foothills between Sacramento and Placerville. used to hunt them and then Dad would cook them. There were always lots around where I would go fishing on the American River, and they were always to be found under the wild blackberry bushes. Not my favorite critter.
    Death to every foe and traitor and hurrah, my boys, for freedom !

  9. #9
    Boolit Master
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    I'm with Finster. Poisonous ones get a trip out to the woods. the others, I catch and take pics.
    “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”

  10. #10
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    My Grandmother was very good with a hoe. She'd decapitate one in a heartbeat and bury the heads. The farm dog got the rest. We only have rattlesnakes here, I find a 20ga shotgun does a pretty good job too, just poke them till they bite the barrel and touching it off sends them on their way.

  11. #11
    Boolit Master
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    I've seen both copperheads and cottonmouths in my yard this year. Below is a baby cottonmouth I found right next to my truck. It looks a bit like a copperhead at first glance, but the green tail says it's a baby, and a closer look at the pattern says it's not a copperhead.

    The other pic is a young speckled king I found last year. I put her in my garden.

    My policy is, I leave the snakes in the woods and pasture alone. When I see them, we go our separate ways. Snakes in the yard are a different story.

    If it's not venomous, I relocate them back out to the pasture, or near my garden. If it's venomous I do the same thing, only I relieve them of their heads first.

    I want to encourage the kings to live here, because they eat venomous snakes and rodents.

    Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

  12. #12
    Boolit Master
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    Copperheads!
    I could find little copperheads in NH in June in what was left of the woodpile.
    I guess there's always a snake in the woodpile.
    Here in the old folks home in the Sonoran desert we have fat five foot gopher snakes, pretty things pointed at both ends but alas the neighbors will kill anything that's snakey. For real fun the fire department sends kids to chase snakes out of garages. I called the FD for a four foot rattler so SWMBO could get a picture of their crew with a live snake. I have killed nine coontails in the backyard in two years. The neighbors rarely see the rattlers hidden in the oleanders, the foolish gopher snakes will climb right over the walls to their doom.
    My monthly bug guy has wiped out the crickets and roaches at the bottom of the food chain, the pack rats went to the next door bird feeder, and so I have found no snakes so far this year.

  13. #13
    Boolit Buddy badguybuster's Avatar
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    Copperhead skins make good backings for selfbows.

  14. #14
    Boolit Buddy memtb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gator 45/70 View Post
    Growing up and being knotheads we went out snake hunting, Something I don't see or hear our youth doing today.

    Growing up in your “neck of the woods”, when we went fishing....I was more more interested in shooting snakes with my air rifle than actually fishing!

    I’m really looking forward to trying out on of my shot shells from my 460 on some of our local rattlers! memtb
    You should not use a rifle that will kill an animal when everything goes right; you should use one that will do the job when everything goes wrong." -Bob Hagel

    “LETS GO BRANDON”

  15. #15
    Boolit Master
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    ryanmattes,, that is a juvie copperhead, not a cottonmouth.

  16. #16
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by contender1 View Post
    ryanmattes,, that is a juvie copperhead, not a cottonmouth.
    It's not. Check out the pics below. The pattern is different.

    Both have green tails as neonates, and the cottonmouth doesn't darken up until it's older.

    Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

  17. #17
    Boolit Master

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    So what is this? I know the pics aren’t the best but I couldn’t convince it to pose. The tail sort of looked like some of the photos posted by others but it was vibrating like it wanted to rattle. It did have a triangular head.
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  18. #18
    Boolit Master
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    Bullsnakes and gopher snakes both mimic rattlers, and can have a diamond pattern like that, although I'm more familiar with the ones in Texas, which look a little different than the one in your picture.

    Both will rattle their tails against leaves, as will gopher snakes, but they have a different shaped head.

    All that said, a very young rattler will only have one or two buds on his tail, and may not be able to rattle like an older rattler. That pattern is iffy enough that I'm not comfortable saying whether it is or isn't a rattler just from the pics.

    One telltale is that all rattlers of all species have a brown stripe that passes over their eyes, like this:



    If you see that, and that pattern, and it's trying to rattle but just not making a lot of noise, you might have a juvenile rattler on your hands.

  19. #19
    Boolit Master





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    Nothing but garter snakes in my area. I hate snakes. Living in Arizona with rattlesnakes in my yard was awful.
    "Luck don't live out here. Wolves don't kill the unlucky deer; they kill the weak ones..." Jeremy Renner in Wind River

  20. #20
    Boolit Master Shopdog's Avatar
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    My #3 son is in Raleigh. He killed a 3' copperhead in their smallish,fenced play area. My 2 y.o. Gbaby and their dog play in there. Killed the snake at one the kids favorite hide N seek spots. It was 2 days ago and we're all pretty shaken up by it.

    #4 son is finishing a month on the A.T. and has run into a BUNCH of Eastern Diamondbacks... much more this year he said.

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