ever get really close to a big snake.

today me and my pops went on a walk, and on our left, we heard a LOUD hissing sound....we were only inches away from this guy:

http://www.thies-times.com/serpentryan/2005-30.jpg

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10370_12145_12201-61207--,00.html

it scared the bujesus outa my pops. Looks just like a cobra doesnt it. Non venomous though. That hiss is really lound. What about 24 inches. Anyone have a similar experience?

-david

All the time. We get rattlesnakes on the trails in southern California, where I run. Sometimes I don't see the snake until too late and I have to go over the top of of it. Good thing neither of us is looking for a problem.

Another time my coworker says, "Hey look, a baby rattlesnake. Get up to it so I can take your picture." So I do, and he says, "Get closer. Closer. Closer." I remember saying, "Uhh. . ." I have the picture, but it is really hard to see the snake because of its natural camoflage and my squatting position looks like I'm demonstrating how to do something in the woods.

At first, I thought a Copperhead; the nostril looks like a pit viper's equipment.

Our local university has a botanical garden where they hold events. A woman was attending a concert, picked up a small rattler, and was bitten. Dumb, dumb, dumb!

I was hiking in the jungle in Costa Rica and stopped about a foot away from one of these. I didn't see it at first, but fortunately someone else warned me. Their bite can kill within 4 hours.

http://www.bio.ilstu.edu/armstrong/leftoverimages/crtrip/crimages/fer-de-lance.htm

I don't ever want to even see a beetle that big, nevermind a snake.

Lightmeup said:

I was hiking in the jungle in Costa Rica and stopped about a foot away from one of these. I didn't see it at first, but fortunately someone else warned me. Their bite can kill within 4 hours.

http://www.bio.ilstu.edu/armstrong/leftoverimages/crtrip/crimages/fer-de-lance.htm

Click to expand...

stepped out side just the other day and found my kitty putting a lot of attention on what may have been a 31/2 if not 4 foot rattler thick as my arm.
picked him up with a snake hook and deposited him in a Rubbermaid Carb-X clear box with nary a hiss nor rattle. beautiful snake. he sat in the car for a few hours till I decided to release him here; he was just full of mice, and there's too many meeses around here to be exporting all the snakes..

that hognose is a beautiful snake too. makes a great and gentle pet, but they eat only toads, I think.

OH yeah...been there done that in Georgia & Arizona!

No snakes in Alaska though we've got some pretty big bears that don't want to share fishing holes or campgrounds!!

Sort of... About 20 years ago I was on a boat that made a delivery in Iquitos, Peru, about 2700 miles up the Amazon. We had been on the boat ~50 days and were quickly going stir crazy -- I think that there were only 8 or 9 of us. There was a huge festival going on in a town near by and we went over in a couple of cabs.

It was a nice afternoon and a very pleasant place to be. There was music and all kinds of vendors with interesting things to sell. We were just standing around talking in a circle and drinking beers and taking it all in. It was great. After a while I noticed that the group was sort of moving -- they were slowly backing me up, step by step. I didn't think much of it but eventually I glanced over my shoulder so I wouldn't trip over anything. What I saw was quite a surprise. There was a taxidermy booth with all kinds of critters on display. About three feet from me was a huge, stuffed anaconda, mounted coiled with its mouth open like it was ready to strike. It was sitting on a counter so it's head was at the same height as my own.

That's why they were working me backwards. Good one.

It was big enough that it's coiled up body looked like a stack of car tires.

I dont live near a big snake country...thank god...
plenty of grass snakes [how cute!]
but copperheads and rattle snakes...[gulp]
this reminds me....any idea how can I edc a full sized shovel in case i meet one of these fellas....

Not talking about my brother's pythons. . .

A cobra when I was in the Philippines that caught me off guard. Also the biggest Anaconda I've ever seen in the San Diego Zoo, must have been close to 30 thinking or so feet! :huh:. Of course it was behind the glass. The sign says that they feed it 100 pound pig every so often.

11 foot 65 pound boa here in the room somewhere....
a new neighbor asked me why there was a utility pole in the front room.told him to look closer.
critter was mid shed so pattern was not very distinct.all i heard was oh poop! and running.

About every week around here. We live in fairly wet terrain and I'm one of those genuises that goes out tromping around looking for bullfrogs in canals and ponds. I've stepped on or over plenty of copperheads, but I don't worry too much about them. Those that I've seen have been sluggish and slow compared to cottonmouths (water moccassins) or rattlesnakes. Most often I run into large watersnakes or cottonmouths, although I've seen a few large rattlesnakes that we normally let be unless they are really close to our house (too many young bird dogs) and one dumb lab that doesn't know when to leave snakes well enough alone. She retrieved one out of the canal in front of the house last year, thing was the snake wasn't anywhere near dead yet and he bit her three or four times. That's about the third snakebite incident overall.

Ended up killing a copperhead yesterday in fact, I think he was full of field mice as I was clearing an overgrown orchard that was full of mice/rats and he scooted out from underneath the mower. My brother killed him with one of our brushcutting weedeaters (third or fourth snake poisonus snake attributed to this particular weedeater). He was about 36 inches long and at least as big around as a D cell Mag.

So far the largest poisonous snake I've run into was a 4' 8" cottonmouth that my buddy almost stepped on. He was 8 and 1/2 inches in diameter and pure ugly coiled in the grass where we were fishing. I've seen longer corn and rat snakes and have heard of much longer rattlesnakes around here, but so far I haven't found a larger cottonmouth.......thankfully, lol.

Man, you got to see a hognosed snake? I envy you, snakes are one of my favourite animals .They're very rare in Ontario and considered endangered according to Parks Canada. I have yet to see a big snake, the biggest one in the wild I've seen was a northern water snake about 4-5 feet long. Personally I don't believe in killing snakes (really ticks me off how ignorant people are ), don't bother them and they won't bother you, perhaps if WDR65 didn't kill them, he would have a few less mice to worry about.

I knew that would start some sort of flaming. Most snakes I don't bother, in fact I shared my front porch with a king snake the other day. If you knew how much money we have paid in vet bills for snake bites you might not respond so harshly. That is why I get rid of the poisonous ones around my home. I would even have let the copperhead go yesterday had it not been in the front yard of an elderly couples home. It may not be the most reptile friendly method, but I don't know of any better ways at this point. I apologize for offending you, but I believe that the snake situation is quite a bit different in my area than in yours.

WDR65 said:

I knew that would start some sort of flaming. Most snakes I don't bother, in fact I shared my front porch with a king snake the other day. If you knew how much money we have paid in vet bills for snake bites you might not respond so harshly. That is why I get rid of the poisonous ones around my home. I would even have let the copperhead go yesterday had it not been in the front yard of an elderly couples home. It may not be the most reptile friendly method, but I don't know of any better ways at this point. I apologize for offending you, but I believe that the snake situation is quite a bit different in my area than in yours.

Click to expand...

No hard feelings, but the simplest method would be to make your yard possibly less snake friendly? Remove just about everything they can hide under and get rid of basking spots such as a rock garden, that's what I've heard from several gardeners in the states.

There aren't very many places in my yard that are snake friendly per se, but we own about a thousand acres of fairly low lying land behind the house that is ideal for snakes. That combined with the county mosquito control canal in the back yard that is one of the few places that will contain water in very dry conditions attracts quite a few. I could walk out there with a light right now and start counting red bellied water snakes and some other varieties. If they get in the yard we generally try to pick them up with a shovel and move them out into the woods, but certain varieties I'm not too fond of picking up. No hard feelings though D@rk Messenger and as for the Northern watersnakes I ran across one last year that was pushing four feet, he and I had a kind of staredown contest as I was pushing my boat off the bank. No harm done as we each went our seperate ways.

My father and I both try to avoid killing any rattlesnakes as they seem to have become rarer and rarer around here as the years have gone by. I have only seen three or so in my lifetime whereas older generations can recall seeing them quite regularly and as ours is still a rural farming area I don't really know what might cause their decline.

yea....so close...i think it was just an 1 inch of glass.
at the reptile farm

The only snakes we have in the UK are Adders which are slightly venomous and I've only ever seen one.

Saw this in the garden the other day and just had too take a photo.
Its not a snake but a slow worm.

from Post #12 by WDR65:

<So far the largest poisonous snake I've run into was a 4' 8" cottonmouth that my buddy almost stepped on. He was 8 and 1/2 inches in diameter ...>

OMG!!! A cottonmouth 8 and 1/2 inches in DIAMETER, jeeez that's like as big as a big constrictor. Bigger in diameter than a 6 inch PVC Schedule 40 pipe. Bigger in diameter than the bolt circle diameter of the lug nuts/bolts of most cars and light trucks. Bigger than, well, you get the idea.

A 4' 8" cottonmouth with a body CIRCUMFERENCE of 8 1/2 inches is still pretty gosh darn big though.

I found a rattler shaking his tail and coming right at me.. I didn't know I could run that fast!