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PostPosted: Wed May 13, 2015 2:17 pm 
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Out mowing the yard this morning and spooked a couple cotton mouths. Managed to run one down on my rider. Guess I'll have to start carrying my Ruger LCR .22mag with snake shot this year, since I won't always be on the rider. :)

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PostPosted: Wed May 13, 2015 4:20 pm 
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Holy cow! The worst I run across (not literally) are a couple small frogs now and then.

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PostPosted: Wed May 13, 2015 5:32 pm 
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DennisS wrote:
Holy cow! The worst I run across (not literally) are a couple small frogs now and then.


They're fairly common around here. I've run into them before. Usually they are pretty shy and bug out before you even see them, but sometimes they get defensive.

Did a quickie spread test on a snake target (close to life size) from about 8ft. Hard to see the hits in this pic but every tiny spot is a pellet. About 30 pellets hit the head. This is 52grain CCI .22wmr #12 shot from my LCR.

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PostPosted: Thu May 14, 2015 12:02 am 
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we accidentally ran over a snake the other day too... my 11 year old was on my lap steering (he's too light to drive on his own, the tractor shuts off) and I was running the pedals. Suddenly he (unusually) veered left and yelled; we'd ran over one of our resident garter snakes. He was pretty upset as we'd just had a discussion about how they were good for our land (there are no poisonous snakes here on Whidbey island). We took the body and put it into the old compost pile behind the grain house - where I explained that eventually it would become soil we would use to feed vegetables for our use... so its death wasn't in vain. He seemed to be satisfied with this answer.

Thank goodness no cottonmouths here- had enough of them in Florida (once had one that swallowed a fish on my stringer... I thought the stringer felt heavy when I pulled it out of the water and then WHOA! big snake 12 inches from my face in the boat... (I cut the stringer loose..)

Lawrence

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PostPosted: Thu May 14, 2015 10:05 am 
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Living in town, the closest thing to wildlife I see are birds, squirrels, and cottontail rabbits. However, we do have a good sized lizard living in the tool barn.
It is only about eight to 10 inches long and isn't harmful at all, in fact very helpful as far as crickets and bugs go. It just startles me when it runs to hide when I go get on the mower. :D
My only fear is that the wife will see it and go bonkers about wanting me to kill it. :(
We had another one living out there two years ago and I was very careful to NOT scare it away. But, wouldn't you know the son-of-a-gun "HID" right behind the mower tire and I backed over him! :x :oops: :cry:

Rog

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PostPosted: Thu May 14, 2015 11:32 am 
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Rapid Roger wrote:
Living in town, the closest thing to wildlife I see are birds, squirrels, and cottontail rabbits. However, we do have a good sized lizard living in the tool barn.
It is only about eight to 10 inches long and isn't harmful at all, in fact very helpful as far as crickets and bugs go. It just startles me when it runs to hide when I go get on the mower. :D
My only fear is that the wife will see it and go bonkers about wanting me to kill it. :(
We had another one living out there two years ago and I was very careful to NOT scare it away. But, wouldn't you know the son-of-a-gun "HID" right behind the mower tire and I backed over him! :x :oops: :cry:

Rog


We have lizards around here also, but we usually call 'em 'gators. :D Some guy bagged a 12 footer in one of the nearby cypress swamps last year. There is a season for them and tags are by lottery. Don't want to thin the herd too much, since they tend to help out with the feral pig problem. :)

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PostPosted: Mon May 18, 2015 6:38 am 
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Before round bales, it was sometimes an adventure throwing hay. Snakes would get baled inside, and it didn't improve their disposition a bit when they did. None poisonous this far north, but the big racers and gopher snakes can be intimidating and deliver a messy wound.


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PostPosted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 7:02 pm 
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bleeeeeeeeeeeepppppppp bleeeeeeeeeeeepppppppppp
snake bleeeeeeeeeepppppppping thing.
G thanks GENE.

I surly could paddle my canoe faster then a 100 HP outboard motor if i saw anything like that..
Heck I can't stand to look at a pair of snake boots.


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PostPosted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 9:19 pm 
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Hey Gene,

If you have a lot of those, you could make some money selling the dried skins to bowyers. A number of my bowyer friends would use cottonmouth skin as bow backing. It makes an attractive bow, although I prefer bull snakes.

I've heard that cottonmouths get particularly aggressive during floods, and that they are good swimmers. I don't think I'd want to be in the water with one, good temper or bad.

Cheers,
Tom

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PostPosted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 6:19 am 
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tms wrote:
Hey Gene,

If you have a lot of those, you could make some money selling the dried skins to bowyers. A number of my bowyer friends would use cottonmouth skin as bow backing. It makes an attractive bow, although I prefer bull snakes.

I've heard that cottonmouths get particularly aggressive during floods, and that they are good swimmers. I don't think I'd want to be in the water with one, good temper or bad.

Cheers,
Tom


Don't have any skins at all. Had a live one in the garage a few years ago, and occasionally find them around ponds, under wood stacks, in outbuildings, etc. They don't have rattle's so folks sometimes get surprised by them. Normally, they only want to get away from people, but they can be unpredictable. They give live birth, usually in late summer, of a half dozen or more, and do guard their young for a while, so that's the most likely time they'll confront you. I haven't heard of anyone around here being bitten in years tho.

They've been known to climb into small boats to rest or get warm. Some guys fishing from a boat will carry a revolver with shotshells, and line their boat with a couple inches of cork to absorb the pellets that miss the snake. Water lowers their body temp, so they need to bask fairly often, and this is often mistaken as aggressive behavior. They're just looking for someplace to get warm. :)

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PostPosted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 9:10 am 
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Well well as luck would have it, I found a gardener snake in the yard a few days ago.
They are fairly common around here but usually about 8" - 12" long and this one was over 24" long and fat! He was "living the life" I guess.
I left him alone and he disappeared to keep eating and growing I hope!

Rog

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 16, 2015 4:09 am 
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Probably a female ready to give birth. They bear live young. My big old female foxsnake lays eggs in the mulch pile every year. Learned this to my sadness a number of years back when I started to rotate the stuff and destroyed her clutch. Now I don't touch until late July. At 6', she's impressive even when she isn't loaded with eggs.


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PostPosted: Tue Jun 16, 2015 9:27 am 
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NB George wrote:
Probably a female ready to give birth.


Yea, either that or "he" just ate a field mouse or small bird and was looking for a lace to "lay up" and digest it. Hey, don't we all enjoy our "after dinner naps"? :-D

Rog

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PostPosted: Mon Jun 22, 2015 11:53 pm 
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Remember to polish the end of the barrel snakes loved to follow shiny things with their eyes. you will remove the bluing, but you will also remove a deadly threat.

Tell us what is it like when a cotton mouth gets dissected between three rotating blades?

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PostPosted: Wed Sep 09, 2015 6:15 pm 
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Years ago in at my home a little more south of here, I walked out to my shop one morning, opened the door and a black snake took off. They are fast. Anyway, when I went in for lunch, told the wife what I saw in the shop. she said "I will not be going out there anymore." She hated snakes of any kind. Another time we saw one fall from a tree in the back yard, she wanted to kill it, but it was a chicken snake/rat snake, I put it in a bucket and took it down the road and released it. The snake was in the squirrel nest and mother squirrel fought it off and it fell out of the tree with a baby squirrel in it's mouth, and released it when it hit the ground. Later the mother came and picked up the baby and took it and the others to another nest. Loved living in the country. Now it is city time.


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