Snakes!

[shark_za]

Couple of months ago hunting in Thabazimbi
So cute, a little Eastern Bark Snake decided to keep me company in my room.
I always do a check before "using the facilities" as I dont want to be bitten on the ass.

https://www.africansnakebiteinstitute.com/snake/eastern-bark-snake-3-2/

 

[Hunt anything]

This cottonmouth greeted me today at my back door when I went home for lunch!

 

[autofire]

This June in Botswana. Deadly boomschlang in tree. PH told me he doubted that there is an anti-venom; but it wouldn’t matter as we were so far out in the bush that we would not be able to get to a medical facility in time.
Guess sometimes it pays off to be looking up instead of looking at the ground trying to track animals.

 

[Hunt anything]

As bad as the cottonmouths are around my house I’ll take them over the various creepy crawlers I’ve seen in Mozambique and South Africa.

 

[F. Vaccaro]

As bad as the cottonmouths are around my house I’ll take them over the various creepy crawlers I’ve seen in Mozambique and South Africa.

The lesser or two evils?

 

[Traveler1]

This cottonmouth greeted me today at my back door when I went home for lunch!

Holly Sh*^. The cotton mouth is the only snake that worries me in Texas. Nasty little thing. I had one come in my kayak at summer camp. We all existed faster than a speeding bullet. Now all these years later I have baby ones in my yard in OK. I prefer the greater of the two evils.

 

[Traveler1]

Blue Indigo South Texas. Moved it out the field, as our farmer was about to disc.

 

[Hunt anything]

That’s a hell of a snake, I wish we still had indigos here, I do transplant any rat snakes to eat rats and all the king snakes I can catch to my yard to put a small dent in the cottonmouths around the house.

 

[leslie hetrick]

a good friend just killed two big timber rattlers near his back porch, to close to people comming and going from the house. they had to go.

 

[TwoTracks]

Scouting this past weekend I came across this guy just before the turnoff to camp. Gave me the willies the rest of the night.

 

[Traveler1]

Scouting this past weekend I came across this guy just before the turnoff to camp. Gave me the willies the rest of the night.

Yeah.. I don't go anywhere on my property this time of year without snake boots. Its crazy, opening weekend of dove season and a few week after, we are in snake boots and shorts.

 

[TwoTracks]

Yeah.. I don't go anywhere on my property this time of year without snake boots. Its crazy, opening weekend of dove season and a few week after, we are in snake boots and shorts.

That indigo snake is super cool. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen one. I wonder if there are as many now compared to 30 years ago?

 

[curtism1234]

more people die from bee stings in the u.s.a. than snake bites.

But more people die of a heart attack or fall head injury after seeing a snake...

 

[Traveler1]

That indigo snake is super cool. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen one. I wonder if there are as many now compared to 30 years ago?

In my 40 plus years hunting around South Texas, I have seen 3 maybe 4 Blue Indigo. This being from Corpus Christi west to Laredo and south to the Rio Grande. As I kid we walked for miles all my best friend family ranches. They ran cattle, so some big spreads. In all those miles we only saw 2 or 3. Heck we saw more rattle snakes doing the mating dance then we saw indigo. As an adult I have only seen the one in the picture above. So I would assume less now.

 

[Zambezi]

This June in Botswana. Deadly boomschlang in tree. PH told me he doubted that there is an anti-venom; but it wouldn’t matter as we were so far out in the bush that we would not be able to get to a medical facility in time.
Guess sometimes it pays off to be looking up instead of looking at the ground trying to track animals.

View attachment 486066

There is a specific anti-venom for the boomslang (also vine/twig snake) developed in SA but not sure if Botswana keeps stock or has developed their own.

The thing about the boomslang bite is that you might not display symptoms for up to 24 hours. Then the fun starts. Bleeding from all openings, even old wounds. So you could have time to get to anti-venom depending how quick you act and where you are located.

I'd say the most painful bite would be your cytotoxic snakes (puff adder etc). The purely neurotoxic snake bites don't create a lot of pain comparatively and the effects can be a bit "trippy" but you know you'll die quicker as your diaphragm is paralised and your heart stops beating.

Hemotoxic bites like the boomslang but just be downright scary when you start bleeding out your eye sockets, butt, nose etc as your blood cells break down.

As they said in Hill Street Blues... "Keep 'em peeled"!

 

[Rubberhead]

In South Carolina, our duck season doesn't open until the week of Thanksgiving. That's the third trimester of fall, certainly snakes are hibernating by then.

I dropped a decoying canvasback into the spartina grass behind the boat so I jumped out to try to find it. I took a boat paddle mostly because there are some soft spots in the mud. I looked around for a few minutes before seeing movement in the grass. I figured, of course, that was my bird trying to get away from me. It was sunny and tough to see down in the thick, waist-high grass. When I got to my bird all I found was a cottonmouth that was trying to turn around and strike me. If it wasn't for the grass being so thick, I probably would have been bitten. Anyway, I wore it out with the boat paddle then went and found my bird.

 

[Goose Cracker]

Puff adder one of the trackers almost stepped on when tracking buff in 2021 in Limpopo SA.

There was also a puff adder we almost stepped on that was near where my buff fell. Luckily when my buff's buddies came back to try to get him up, one of them stomped on the snake and it was stunned. When the trackers were hacking the grass around the buff he saw the snake and killed it.

 

[C.W. Richter]

"Here's a lil extra tip for prodding that cobra in the rocks with your shooting sticks and making it spit at all of us!!!"

 

[C.W. Richter]

In South Carolina, our duck season doesn't open until the week of Thanksgiving. That's the third trimester of fall, certainly snakes are hibernating by then.

I dropped a decoying canvasback into the spartina grass behind the boat so I jumped out to try to find it. I took a boat paddle mostly because there are some soft spots in the mud. I looked around for a few minutes before seeing movement in the grass. I figured, of course, that was my bird trying to get away from me. It was sunny and tough to see down in the thick, waist-high grass. When I got to my bird all I found was a cottonmouth that was trying to turn around and strike me. If it wasn't for the grass being so thick, I probably would have been bitten. Anyway, I wore it out with the boat paddle then went and found my bird.

Spartina caespitosa (Short salt marsh grass or cordgrass) or Spartina Alternaflora (Long salt marsh grass or cordgrass)? They actually reclassified it to Sporobolus! Yeah, I get e-mails from former Professors wetting themselves over this sort of news. LOL I spent a lot of time in the Spartina (and catching small sharks and bowhunting tiny sika deer, while avoiding local sea hags when off the clock!)

 

[observe]