Snakes on the plains

[Nyati]

A nice lizard from KwaZulu/Natal

 

[WAB]

A number of years ago I was in Haiti and got very sick. I was too ill to pull the mosquito net down and just collapsed on my bed. There are very large tarantulas everywhere on the North shore. These things are the size of small plates. In the middle of the night I woke up and one was on my face. It covered my entire face! I quickly brushed it off and it landed on my leg, at which point I levitated to the light switch, got a stick, and killed it. I suddenly had the energy to pull down my netting!

 

[Zambezi]

The African Rain Spider ... Good God!View attachment 366916

We used to have a lot of rain spiders in the house we bought. I would catch the smaller ones (8-10cm dia) with my hands as I wanted my young boys to not fear them. The bite is as about as painful as a wasp sting. I was lucky enough not to receive a bite. The bigger ones I'd put a bowl over them and slide a piece of paper under them.

They also used to set off the electric fence when they grounded themselves while moving along the stands. Sometimes they would just get shocked to death, you could judge the size by the sound of the "thwack" as it got zapped.

 

[Northwest9]

When I was station in Kalifornia back in the 80s. I played soccer for the base, and went to a soccer championship to Edwards AFB, which is located in the Mohave dessert. We were given our standard safety briefing about the local area (which was about 40 miles away), and the local residents. Two were mentioned, Rattle Snakes & Tarantulas. I was in my early 20s (21 to be precise, and stupid), that evening I found a tarantula in my room, about the size in diameter of a six inch plate. I of course being fearless (stupid), grabbed the Tarantula and allowed this thing to walk on my hand and arm. My team mates ran like school girls, and I got yelled at by my trip commander who ordered me to get rid of such creature. Looking back at my stupidity (fearless at that time), I prob wouldn't do that now. LMAO!!!!! @Randy F talk about some serious stupid sh*t! LMAO!!!!!

my only interaction with what i thought was a tarantula was in nevada in 2018

I was over in vegas for a work conference, so i teed up a day trip chasing coyotes out in the desert near rachel.

we'd set up with the caller, and i was sitting with my back to a rock, knees drawn up to act as a shooting rest if one came in. I sat there waiting, when i noticed movement between my legs...

it was only about the size of my palm or a bit more, and it was just slowly moving along, so i left him be, and looked up in time to watch two coyotes appear. I shot one, missed the other, and never saw the spider again.

he looked pretty harmless, kinda like a huntsman spider that we get here. we leave them alone when we find one in the house, cause they eat mozzies and flies, and smaller spiders. the kids refer to them all as "Fred".

"Where did Fred go"?

"this Fred is smaller than the last Fred."

The Freds are allowed to stay as long as they dont try to enter bedrooms

 

[Mort Hill]

All the talk of Copperheads reminded me of a funny teen story. Growing up on Signal Mtn, TN, a friend of mine and I had old 70’s model CJ5 jeeps. These jeeps had a storage box under the passengers seat. As we road back home one night together in Todd’s jeep from a trip to the local Blue Hole swimming hole, the lights of the jeep shown a monster of a snake on the dirt two track. My friend Todd was driving and jumped out of the jeep while we were still crawling along, grabbed a log, and smashed what ended up being about a 58” long copperhead. It was the biggest copperhead we had ever seen. Todd proceeded to put the snake in the metal storage box under my seat. I was nervous as a whore in church with that snake under my seat, so I took the big log Todd had used and wedged it into the doorless jeep between the floor and roll bar in case we encountered any more monsters. After about 10 minutes of riding further, a bat, drawn to the head lamps for bugs I guess, fluttered across the inside of the windshield. That did it for me. Thoughts of that snake, and now a bat flapping in front of my face shattered my nerves. On pure fight or flight instinct, While still rolling along, I literally crashed through the log beside me, dove out of the jeep, screaming like I was on fire. Todd stopped the jeep, and jumped out too thinking the snake had somehow come back to life and was loose in the jeep. When I told him what had happened, and it was the bat that had done me in, for the first time in my life I saw someone literally fall to the ground laughing. Some 40+ years later I still have a big smile thinking about that night, and Todd still has the skin of that snake where we tanned it out. Good times for sure!

 

[Scott CWO]

@Randy F - great thread. I have enjoyed the stories and your comments about them. It's a small world - I also grew up in western South Dakota in the Black Hills and encountered many rattlesnakes. My brother and I became known for catching them and the neighbors would call us to come catch or kill them near their homes.

As for Africa, I have two stories that you might enjoy. While in the Niassa Reserve in northern Mozambique in 2013 with the late Jamie Wilson, we were driving off-road through the countryside, swerving around the trees and branches, looking for sable and heading to a place Jamie wanted to check. My wife, Wendy, was sitting in the left front seat while Jamie drove in the right front seat. The Crusier had no doors or roof on it. I was sitting directly behind and above Jamie on the bench seat in the back of the Cruiser with two trackers to my left. While doing this, I had to bend down to pass under lots of tree branches. I saw another branch coming my way so I bent over at the waist. Just then, the trackers saw a Boomslang snake on the same branch and they started yelling, "Cobra, cobra, cobra very angry!" The trackers only spoke broken English so every snake they saw was a "cobra." Hearing the commotion in the back of the Cruiser, Jamie thought we had seen an animal so he slammed on the brakes and stopped with the snake and branch just inches above my neck! I froze and yelled, "Go, go, go snake, snake, snake!" Jamie then let out the clutch and drove away about 10 yards and stopped. The trackers then pointed out the snake to Jamie and said it had been just above me with it's mouth wide open about 180 degrees. Jamie identified it as a Boomslang and said that they have to open their mouth really wide to bite because their fangs are not in the front of the mouth. He then told me that I may have died if bitten because the nearest antivenom was in South Africa. He said the venom is very deadly and many people that are bitten think they are fine until about 24 hours later when they hemorrhage from every orifice and die! That evening, I had an extra stiff drink or two around the fire!

In 2014 while hunting in Coutada 9 in Mozambique, the camp manager's wife had a frightening experience with a spitting cobra inside their bungalow. There are little gecko lizards in and around the buildings. She was laying on the bed reading a book and didn't realize that a spitting cobra was inside the bungalow chasing lizards up in the roof timbers underneath the thatched grass roof. Suddenly, a lizard fell or jumped off a timber over the bed and landed on her lap, quickly followed by the cobra! Luckily, the lizard, with the snake in hot pursuit, immediately jumped off her lap and onto the floor. It scared the hell out of her. She threatened to leave the camp immediately and head home to South Africa unless her husband installed chicken wire underneath all the roof timbers, which he did in all the bungalows.

 

[Randy F]

@Randy F - great thread. I have enjoyed the stories and your comments about them. It's a small world - I also grew up in western South Dakota in the Black Hills and encountered many rattlesnakes. My brother and I became known for catching them and the neighbors would call us to come catch or kill them near their homes.

As for Africa, I have two stories that you might enjoy. While in the Niassa Reserve in northern Mozambique in 2013 with the late Jamie Wilson, we were driving off-road through the countryside, swerving around the trees and branches, looking for sable and heading to a place Jamie wanted to check. My wife, Wendy, was sitting in the left front seat while Jamie drove in the right front seat. The Crusier had no doors or roof on it. I was sitting directly behind and above Jamie on the bench seat in the back of the Cruiser with two trackers to my left. While doing this, I had to bend down to pass under lots of tree branches. I saw another branch coming my way so I bent over at the waist. Just then, the trackers saw a Boomslang snake on the same branch and they started yelling, "Cobra, cobra, cobra very angry!" The trackers only spoke broken English so every snake they saw was a "cobra." Hearing the commotion in the back of the Cruiser, Jamie thought we had seen an animal so he slammed on the brakes and stopped with the snake and branch just inches above my neck! I froze and yelled, "Go, go, go snake, snake, snake!" Jamie then let out the clutch and drove away about 10 yards and stopped. The trackers then pointed out the snake to Jamie and said it had been just above me with it's mouth wide open about 180 degrees. Jamie identified it as a Boomslang and said that they have to open their mouth really wide to bite because their fangs are not in the front of the mouth. He then told me that I may have died if bitten because the nearest antivenom was in South Africa. He said the venom is very deadly and many people that are bitten think they are fine until about 24 hours later when they hemorrhage from every orifice and die! That evening, I had an extra stiff drink or two around the fire!

In 2014 while hunting in Coutada 9 in Mozambique, the camp manager's wife had a frightening experience with a spitting cobra inside their bungalow. There are little gecko lizards in and around the buildings. She was laying on the bed reading a book and didn't realize that a spitting cobra was inside the bungalow chasing lizards up in the roof timbers underneath the thatched grass roof. Suddenly, a lizard fell or jumped off a timber over the bed and landed on her lap, quickly followed by the cobra! Luckily, the lizard, with the snake in hot pursuit, immediately jumped off her lap and onto the floor. It scared the hell out of her. She threatened to leave the camp immediately and head home to South Africa unless her husband installed chicken wire underneath all the roof timbers, which he did in all the bungalows.

Lol!! Wow! Close calls! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Wheels]

As you can tell by the photo, I was old enough to know better than to hold a black mamba.

Photo is proof that God has grace on the infirm.

 

[Randy F]

As you can tell by the photo, I was old enough to know better than to hold a black mamba.

Photo is proof that God has grace on the infirm.


View attachment 367090

There may be grace where you are concerned.
Where I'm concerned there seems to be proof of a morbid sense of humor.

 

[Wheels]

There may be grace where you are concerned.
Where I'm concerned there seems to be proof of a morbid sense of humor.

The wife calls it a demented sense of humor.

Both probably apply.

 

[Artur S]

I have read over the weekend some of the snake threads here on AH.
I don't like snakes and I am quite afraid of them, on a ancient, instinct level.
I've been often outdoors with grandpa (beekeeper) and or my father as a boy, and sometimes "stoned" the occasional adder, most often encountered along creeks, swamps and rivers to death.
I had my share of snake experience as a hunter and traveller, twice pretty close (once me and my brother being stupidly brave teenagers and 2nd time thanks to rugged boots) thank God nothing with serious consequences.

When one reads all those manuals and instructions, for any of the continents, they always say: leave the snake alone, let it go, it just wants its peace and always avoids humans. The occasional writer mentions not so peaceful species, mostly down under, like taipan or tigersnake, or the lazy puff adder in Africa.

Now from my own and my friends' experience and all the info read here on AH and many more reports, I consider that particular statement as pure bullshit, a typical Zeitgeist effort to idealize wildlife and wild critters.

The very substancial part of incidents happens because snakes intrude human space. And quite often not because of food sources. They just don't give a damn about people while pursuing their affairs.
I had our local type of pit vipers (similar to mocassin) and adders crawling into camps, into houses in villages, into tents and yurts, into sleeping bags! I many cases we could only explain it the way that they seek sources of heat and chose warm surfaces, even if its a sleeping human.
Village houses, built there 80-100 years ago, were sometimes visited by snakes. That's not us coming onto their territory that's their intrusion.
the mocassin swimming between the legs of a fisherman, the mamba choosing a tree in the middle of a lodge as its residence and many more cases - don't they show that it's not always a "minding its own business" attitude from their side?

 

[IvW]

Earlier this year we where out on a meat hunt.
I had taken an impal, my son a kudu cow.
It was time to take my brother in laws son who had been trying for 3 days to get his first animal.
We uad been dropped off and where slowly walking and stalking. Due to the good rains the bush was thick and the grass long not easy to hunt.

He was carrying my 7x57mm. I had the shooting sticks in my right hand and the next minute my right leg disapeared down a hole I had not seen due to scanning ahed and the long grass.....the shooting sticks in my right hand went flat to ground as I broke my fall....we both started laughing trying to be quite....but it was a commical afair....
As I pushed down weight on the shooting sticks to extracate myself I suddenly saw the huge black mamba the rear part of which was under the shooting sticks...shouting mamba I launched from the hole pushing my young hunting companiin back and at the same time noticing that ten feet away the front part of the mamba was thankfully heading away. The mid section was as thick as my forearm....

We quickly retreated and gave the area a wide birth.....

In hinddight we where very lucky...as we determined that the snake must have come from the very same hole I had stepped into...had we been a ciuple of minutes earlier things could have been a lot different.....

 

[Woodcarver]

Many moons ago, 1983 to be exact, I was headed to my fiancé's house to have lunch. Not far from her house I found a prairie rattler crossing the road, so I stopped and removed it's head with a shovel. As their hide makes a nice hatband, and I was in need of a new one, I threw the carcass into one of the half barrels I was delivering to my soon to be father in law for cattle minerals.
I had parked the truck in front of the house and was headed out to the corrals to give a hand, when her uncle walked out of the house. By this time the snake had been headless for almost 10 minutes or so. As her uncle walked by the back of the truck, he leaned over to look at the barrel halves. His shadow passing over triggered the carcass to buzz. We estimated his landing to be about 8 feet from the launch! That was followed by the longest string of cursing I had ever heard before, all directed at me, while I was struggling to stay vertical from laughing. His brother also received a healthy dose of language as he pointed out the high pitched scream that lasted longer than the jump.

Instinct can definitely save injury at times. Some years later, while chasing a bad pair of wires in telephone cable, I had parked on the edge of the road and walked around the truck down to the pedestal by the fence. After determining the problem was down the line, I gathered my tools and walked back up the slope to the truck. I didn't see it, I didn't hear it, but my body was suddenly leaping sideways as I watched the head of a prairie rattler miss my knee by an inch or so! I traded the tools I was carrying for a shovel and promptly dispatched the sob. That would teach him to try and bite me!

The other one that could have caused severe pain was found under a trailer I was wiring. Crawling along, feeding the wire through the frame, I crawled up to the flex duct connecting the furnace to the other half of the trailer. The installer had left about a 4 foot section laying next to the working run, so I reached over and slid it sideways out of the way, exposing a 40 inch rattler coiled and fortunately, sleeping. He was less than 2 feet from my nose! Somehow I managed to crawl backwards without alerting him and retrieved a shovel. He too, did not survive getting my adrenaline excessively high.

Phone guys encounter snakes fairly often as we work in the bar ditches and along fence rows. One learns to look before opening a pedestal. Then the bastards just wait inside for the lid to open. Not sure how many snakes of one kind or another I found working on cable. Definitely one of the things I don't miss from the job.

 

[Nembwe]

Many moons ago, 1983 to be exact, I was headed to my fiancé's house to have lunch. Not far from her house I found a prairie rattler crossing the road, so I stopped and removed it's head with a shovel. As their hide makes a nice hatband, and I was in need of a new one, I threw the carcass into one of the half barrels I was delivering to my soon to be father in law for cattle minerals.
I had parked the truck in front of the house and was headed out to the corrals to give a hand, when her uncle walked out of the house. By this time the snake had been headless for almost 10 minutes or so. As her uncle walked by the back of the truck, he leaned over to look at the barrel halves. His shadow passing over triggered the carcass to buzz. We estimated his landing to be about 8 feet from the launch! That was followed by the longest string of cursing I had ever heard before, all directed at me, while I was struggling to stay vertical from laughing. His brother also received a healthy dose of language as he pointed out the high pitched scream that lasted longer than the jump.

Instinct can definitely save injury at times. Some years later, while chasing a bad pair of wires in telephone cable, I had parked on the edge of the road and walked around the truck down to the pedestal by the fence. After determining the problem was down the line, I gathered my tools and walked back up the slope to the truck. I didn't see it, I didn't hear it, but my body was suddenly leaping sideways as I watched the head of a prairie rattler miss my knee by an inch or so! I traded the tools I was carrying for a shovel and promptly dispatched the sob. That would teach him to try and bite me!

The other one that could have caused severe pain was found under a trailer I was wiring. Crawling along, feeding the wire through the frame, I crawled up to the flex duct connecting the furnace to the other half of the trailer. The installer had left about a 4 foot section laying next to the working run, so I reached over and slid it sideways out of the way, exposing a 40 inch rattler coiled and fortunately, sleeping. He was less than 2 feet from my nose! Somehow I managed to crawl backwards without alerting him and retrieved a shovel. He too, did not survive getting my adrenaline excessively high.

Phone guys encounter snakes fairly often as we work in the bar ditches and along fence rows. One learns to look before opening a pedestal. Then the bastards just wait inside for the lid to open. Not sure how many snakes of one kind or another I found working on cable. Definitely one of the things I don't miss from the

 

[Lungshot202]

Southern Az, 14 venomous species, average year 30-40 days afield. normally 3 to 6 encounters yearly, all early season. Have had 11 dogs over 22 years, only two bit, both survived and yes they were snake trained. Just a way of life in the area. If I see multiple snakes on the road driving out I turn around and quit for the day.

 

[JimP]

Phone guys encounter snakes fairly often as we work in the bar ditches and along fence rows. One learns to look before opening a pedestal. Then the bastards just wait inside for the lid to open. Not sure how many snakes of one kind or another I found working on cable. Definitely one of the things I don't miss from the job.

I was working in eastern Utah on a inter office carrier cable which had repeaters in hand holes in the ground which were around 3'x6' and 3-4' deep. I stopped to help my partner and walked over to where he was at down in the hand hole working on the repeater housing. I took a look and told him that I needed to show him something outside of the hole. I gave him my hand to help him up and out of the hole and once he was up I showed him what he had been working around. Coiled up on the splice on the other side of the hand hole was a nice 4' rattler. That snake never did rattle but was content just to lay there.

In that same area I had to get into one of the holes one day and after lifting up the lid I noticed half of a rattler slithering into a hole under the side. Since I had to get into the hole to check things out I got my shovel out and shoveled about a foot of dirt around the bottom of the hand hole and covered up every hole that I could see. After that one we would walk up to the lids and jump up and down on them and then listen to see if we could hear any rattling.

But my best one was when I was working up on a pole when I was on the line crew. I came down off of the pole and felt something hit the side of my boot. I looked down and saw a piece of sagebrush that I figured had brushed up against my boot. Then I felt it again. I looked again and there was about a foot of rattle snake sticking out from under my boot. He couldn't get up high enough to actually bite me but he was trying. I was glad that I was wearing a good pair of White climbing high top boots, they came up 16" onto my lower leg.

 

[F. Vaccaro]

I developed a dislike for poisonous snakes at a young age. I was with my Uncle checking his cattle one day & we came upon one of his nice Herford cows with her head swolen to where her eyes were nearly shut. I asked what happened to her, he said probably bitten by a rattler. I asked will she live? He said unless her throat swells to where she can't breath she will.
Since that day, I've disliked poisonous snakes! A Lot!

 

[Newboomer]

I developed a dislike for poisonous snakes at a young age. I was with my Uncle checking his cattle one day & we came upon one of his nice Herford cows with her head swolen to where her eyes were nearly shut. I asked what happened to her, he said probably bitten by a rattler. I asked will she live? He said unless her throat swells to where she can't breath she will.
Since that day, I've disliked poisonous snakes! A Lot!

Here in northern NV we rarely see one and I've never had the displeasure where I live. Hope it stays that way. I don't like snakes of any kind.