Nearly stepped on this guy... guessing 4 1/2-5 feet long. The biggest I have ever seen. Please be careful fellas. He definitely struck at me though he was so fat it exhausted him. LOL
Yeah, that would kinda ruin your day. I hate those snakes, they usually seem tobe pretty aggressive. ~Bill
LKSAJHDFlkjsa ndsahd I hate them aggressive bastards! I walked up on a small one in the creek 2 weeks ago and killed 2 while turkey hunting. Kill em!
I live in the midst of rattlesnake country....lots of them. But I will take them over cotton mouths any day. Glad you are okay.
Actually, they don't bother me more than any other snake. I grew up on a farm where we raised rice. If you've ever raised rice and walked the levees looking for muskrat holes and other damage then you've had more up-close and personal encounters with them than you can count. They can be aggressive little buggers though. I'm glad he didn't get you, Muzzy. On a side note, you wouldn't believe how many arguments I've had with people who refuse to believe that a cottonmouth and a water moccasin are the same thing.
agreed! We have a small crawfish pond at the house and we see moccasins all the time. I try to shoot them when possible. What is more nerve racking though is reaching down to grab the trap, seeing this, and running on water till you are out of the pond with brown drawers
One of the greatest things abiut hunting up here. When I lived in Louisiana i was constantly scanning for snakes and spiders. Here in Wisconsin dont have to worry about it.
I have pulled in a basket like that a time or two. Isn't that a banded water snake? Not that it matters. It is commonly thought to be a moccasin.
My wife and I lived about 45 minutes south of Hattiesburg a while back and had a pond in the backyard. I would shoot moccasins on a regular basis. Once after it had been raining all day she thought she saw someone out walking in our yard. I grabbed a pistol and went to check it out just to settle her nerves. Well there was nobody lurking in the woods but I almost stepped on a cottonmouth. I shot the little bugger not once but twice. My wife who was inside heard the shots and thought there had been someone on the property and one of us had two holes in us. Funny now, at the time not so much.
My brother lives in Hattiesburg, and is a herpatologist who catches them for fun on a Friday night. No thanks! He does catch some interesting critters from time to time. Sometimes for demos, training, tracking, etc. But I get worried everytime he has some tied shut bag that he hands me... You just never know. ~Bill
I sent my son to school with two snakes... approved by the biology teacher... but not known about by the office staff. The secretary opened the lid to the Rubbermade container, the green snake got out first... that frightened her, she dropped the canister, then the bull snake got loose... which was quickly mis-identified as a copperhead and the whole school went into total bedlam... The principle was waiting on me that afternoon... Zach was quite popular for a few weeks after that. I wanted to be a herp.
Nah... wasn't bothering me. The only reason it struck at me is because I was getting too close with a camera.