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It is warming up here in Southern California. This will be my first summer as a geocacher. I was wondering what people do during the warm months when the snakes are out. It doesn't have to be just SoCal cachers.

 

Also, do you have any snake encounter stories? What happened, What did you do?

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I've only had one snake encounter here in NJ. I was putting a cache back under some logs, and a snake, about 3 feet long came from my right, sorta behind me. I just stood still and he slithered between my feet and out of sight. I think it was a pine snake. I think not moving was the key.

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It is warming up here in Southern California. This will be my first summer as a geocacher. I was wondering what people do during the warm months when the snakes are out. It doesn't have to be just SoCal cachers.

 

Also, do you have any snake encounter stories? What happened, What did you do?

 

Since you cache in the same area as we, you will come across rattlesnakes. The picture below was taken on a morning hike. This Red Diamond never rattled at us and wanted nothing more than to sun himself on the rock and be left alone. We did just that.

 

We take a walking stick, walk slowly and deliberately, watching where we step. We make noise so that they know we are coming. Most of the time, they will do one of three things: (1) move out of the area, in which case you will never see them, (2) rattle a warning, in which case you will move out of the area and may never see them :laughing: , or (3) they will lie quietly hoping that you will not see them. That was the strategy of the snake in the photo.

 

I might add, when you get to GZ, use the walking stick to poke around for the cache before sticking your hand blindly into any rocks. We have come across many snakes, including our share of rattlers, and have yet to be bothered by any of them. Most people who are bit are being stupid.

 

 

85e83be0-cb75-4a45-8bb0-31981522ffc1.jpg

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Snakes are out year-round here in the South.

 

A ssssnake story....

 

My buddy Scott broke his back in '77 and the good docs at Lakeshore Rehab had convinced him that he would never walk again.

 

He had to sell his house and move in with his Mom, who lived two houses down the street from me. I would see him out on his front porch, paralyzed, in a wheelchair and all bound up, so one day I went over, introduced myself, and told him a joke about cripples.

 

I thought the man was gonna cry; he was terrible upset by my apparent lack of sympathy and my audacity at trying to ruin his perfectly good pity party with such an incorrect joke... if he could have gotten out of that chair I believe he'd of tried to give me a drubbing.

 

That was the start of a lifetime friendship that's held strong for 30+ years now.

 

So I started taking him fishing.

 

At first I had to wheel him around... I rigged a bosun's chair to winch him in and out of the boat at the dock and so on.

 

Over time I would do less and less for him.

 

There was a steep grassy hill up to the car park from the dock, so one day I hoisted him to the dock and left - just went up and got in the car, told him if he wanted a ride home he'd better get himself up that hill.

 

And he did. Cussing me all the way. Sliding on his butt, pushing himself up with his hands. The boy was irate.

 

But he got up to the car, and despite his cussing you could see the pride and budding self-confidence in his eyes. He'd done something he did not believe that he could do.

 

So I took him hunting.

 

I'd take him to a fairly level spot along the creek, set his gun case out and wrangle him out of the boat, then leave him to it.

 

He'd take his gun out of its case, sling it around his neck and push himself sliding along into the woods.

 

When I would go back to get him he'd usually still be in the woods, and it might take him a half hour to get back to the boat once I hollered for him.

 

One day I killed a water moccasin. There is always something fun and interesting to do with a dead snake, and it occurred to me that this snake would be something of a surprise to him when he got back to the boat and opened his gun case.

 

Remember that his legs, he thought, were useless, so he's sitting on his fanny with the case in his lap. When he flipped that gun case open that snake was maybe six inches from his nose.

 

Fight-or-flight. It's a basic instinct.

 

Scott had taken quite a while to come sliding out of the woods, but he went back in much faster! I mean that boy was bull-dozing sizable trees and had those arms and legs churning like a paddle-wheeler.

 

All the while he knew he'd been had, because between leaps he was hollering unprintable epithets and commentary on my ancestry, something like "#$%^&* you Manley!!"

 

But the adrenalin was pumping and he could not stop.

 

So he always had it in the back of his mind that one day he would have his revenge. It took a few years, but he certainly got it!

 

Within three years of meeting him I took him water skiing.

 

He's now a District Manager for Bruno's Supermarkets, married with a great wife and son, walks miles per day and unless he's real tired you can't see his limp.

 

Unless he tells you it's impossible to tell that he was once paralyzed.

 

It's amazing what you can accomplish if you don't listen to the experts... or when you're confronted with a snake in your lap!

 

Another story - call it Scott's Revenge

 

Did I mention that my buddy Scott is terrible afraid of snakes?

 

Won't much go in the woods in the summer at all.

 

He loves to squirrel hunt, but waits to go into the woods until after we've had a hard freeze, by which time, the thinking goes, snakes are in hibernation.

 

One December morn I pooh-poohed this logic and convinced him that it had been quite cold quite long enough, the snakes were asleep, let's go hunting.

 

We hunt my lake place by taking the hunters down the creek by boat to a place where they enter the woods, so I took him to a likely place, dropped him off and went on to my spot.

 

I heard him shoot several times during the morning and was glad that he was having a good hunt.

 

When I went back mid-morning to fetch him he explained that he had shot a squirrel across this small slough and asked me to ease him across there to find it.

 

Since he knew where the animal had fallen I let him drive the boat while I got up on the bow, prepared to step out and retrieve it.

 

If it had been summertime I would have been more leery as he nosed the boat under a clump of brush overhanging the bank, but it was winter, and the snakes they are asleep.

 

So I am standing on the bow, bent low under these bushes, looking for a squirrel on the ground, when I felt it drop out of the bush and wrap around the back of my neck.

 

Snake!!

 

Instant

 

Sheer

 

Panic!!

 

You talk about an adrenaline rush!

 

Now, I don't know if you've ever been in such a fight-or-flight situation... if not let me tell you that it is entirely possible to have two completely different lines of thought simultaneously.

 

Instantly.

 

One line of thought was along the lines of "Oh Darn, a snake dropped out of the bush, is around my neck, in this boat. I think I shall give the snake the boat rather than contest his ownership". That thought took place in the microsecond that I hollered "Snake!!" and lept out of the boat into that cold December water.

 

The other and simultaneous thought was "Manley, you've just been had" so that my next exclamation was "#$%^&* you Fisher!!" but, it was spoken while already airborne and just before hitting said cold water.

 

It was a deal where I KNEW I had been had, knew without doubt that my 'friend' had dropped that snake on me... but the instinct to give the boat to the snake was overpowering... if that snake was IN the boat I was going to be OUT of it!

 

I knew when I lept, just as a mental exercise, that my buddy, my friend, my boon companion, had dropped that snake on me.

 

Intellectually I knew it was dead.

 

Physically I was too busy getting the heck out of that boat to stop now!

 

Later, huddled around a warming camp-fire, when my 'buddy' could quit laughing long enough, he told me that he had encountered and shot the snake on the trail almost as soon as I put him out, and having been assured that there were no snakes about had kept it to 'show' me.

 

Folks... I don't need a cardiologist; with friends like that I KNOW my heart is in good shape, because it had done some serious pumping that day!

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I've only had one snake encounter here in NJ. I was putting a cache back under some logs, and a snake, about 3 feet long came from my right, sorta behind me. I just stood still and he slithered between my feet and out of sight. I think it was a pine snake. I think not moving was the key.

 

Watchung Reservation in Central NJ... late last Fall... about 5-6' long...

There were two of them...

The dogs barked at them, but wouldn't go near...

snake7.JPG

Edited by Peconic Bay Sailors
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AlabamaRambler, that was a great story! Thanks for taking the time to post that. I really enjoyed reading it.

 

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

 

Not all snake stories turn out well, however.

 

My life-long buddy Terry has been known to play a practical joke or two, so when I killed a fairly large moccasin on my property one day he immediately came to mind.

 

Terry lived then in an apartment complex with his wife Marty, who is beyond scared of snakes... she's an hunter and outdoorswoman but snakes just make her fall apart.

 

No problem; Terry always leaves for work before she does, so I coiled the snake outside his front door, figured that it would get a rise out of him when he left for work the next morning.

 

Well, turns out he isn't ALWAYS the first to leave... that morning she was.

 

Terry was in the shower when he heard his beloved wife start screaming and a thud shook the place as she fell to the floor.

 

Thinking the worst he bolted from the shower, grabbed his pistol from a night-stand and ran naked and dripping to the door, to find Marty screaming on the floor, door open, and a huge snake in the doorway!

 

He emptied that pistol into the snake.

 

Fight or flight, it's instinctual.

 

He says that intellectually he knew while he was pulling the trigger that the snake was dead and knew that I had put it there, but the adrenalin was pumping... physically he could not stop shooting till the gun was empty and his wife safe!

 

Now, in apartments such as this you have a concrete hallway and your neighbor's door is directly across from yours... so every bullet he fired hit that concrete and ricocheted across and through his neighbor's door. That poor soul was sitting at his table eating his Wheaties when all hell broke loose and bullet holes started appearing in the walls around him!

 

God and good fortune kept that man from getting hurt... or this story could well have been tragic.

 

As it was all was well in the end, though I did soon receive a rather heated phone call beginning with "#$%^&* you Manley!!" and going downhill from there.

 

Sometimes ssssnake stories can be educational...

 

For instance, me 'n a group of friends stopped to buy minnows on the way to a fishing trip in the town of Two Egg Florida.

 

Downtown Two Egg:

TwoEggFL.jpg

 

Snakes tend to hang around bait sheds, so I wasn't surprised to find one on this morning while the proprietor dipped and counted our minnows.

 

Thinking that it might get an interesting rise I slipped it in my pocket and joined my buddies inside the store buying sardines and crackers and spam and bread for our lunch, and casually handed the snake to my friend E.G.

 

When I regained my senses I was on the floor and the door had been torn completely off its hinges.

 

Lesson learned #1 - E.G. doesn't care for snakes.

 

Lesson learned #2 - never stand between him and the door when you hand someone a snake!

Edited by TheAlabamaRambler
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I see them all the time. A few rattlers, a few copperheads and lots of black snakes. I just walk around them.

 

On time we were at a cache site and realized we were in the middle of what appeared to be a nest of black snakes. There were dozens of them all over. Huge ones. My wife was near panic mode. Knowing they aren't poisonous they didn't bother me. Now if I were a mouse out there I'd be scared spitless.

 

Here's one that stopped to pose for me

 

357dd33d-cffb-43d1-895c-1abc4ba5ee8e.jpg

 

Another black snake, different place. I think these are called Black Racers

 

03e10d15-1f96-4736-afc4-5ac92b875715.jpg

 

Here is a little rattler that we passed going to a cache a few seasons ago:

 

aa89e69e-0105-4ea3-8bd9-d0f4ea160d67.jpg

Edited by briansnat
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I see them all the time. A few rattlers, a few copperheads and lots of black snakes. I just walk around them.

 

On time we were at a cache site and realized we were in the middle of what appeared to be a nest of black snakes. There were dozens of them all over. Huge ones. My wife was near panic mode. Knowing they aren't poisonous they didn't bother me. Now if I were a mouse out there I'd be scared spitless.

 

Here's one that stopped to pose for me

 

357dd33d-cffb-43d1-895c-1abc4ba5ee8e.jpg

 

Another black snake, different place. I think these are called Black Racers

 

03e10d15-1f96-4736-afc4-5ac92b875715.jpg

 

Here is a little rattler that we passed going to a cache a few seasons ago:

 

aa89e69e-0105-4ea3-8bd9-d0f4ea160d67.jpg

 

It's a little telling that the pictures of the non-venomous snakes are crystal clear while the small little rattler is blurry. :anitongue:

 

Never would have expected it from Briansnat though.

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It is warming up here in Southern California. This will be my first summer as a geocacher. I was wondering what people do during the warm months when the snakes are out. It doesn't have to be just SoCal cachers.

 

Also, do you have any snake encounter stories? What happened, What did you do?

Thanks for the reminder! I love snakes, and, in fact, there is a very beautiful and shy female copperhead snake (a pit viper) who lives under the top stone step in our stone steps leading to the mailbox, and I look forward to seeing her again this year when she emerges from hibernation.

 

A very old local legacy cache, dating back to 2001, and located a mile or two from our home here in the mountains of western Maryland is located on a mountaintop on a mountain heavily populated by black bears and there is a large rock pile which serves as a rattlesnake den and sunning area for a very large number of rattlesnakes located just a few feet from the cache. Many cachers report having met rattlesnakes while seeking that cache, and a good number have encountered black bears as well. In fact, my only encounter with a pit viper while caching happened at this site while hunting this cache a few months after we had first started geocaching: I met a nice 4 foot female rattlesnake in the snake den, just feet from the cache container; she had been hidden from view under a rock, and it turned out that she was just inches from my right foot as I sat down to tie the shoelace on my boot on that foot.

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I love snakes....

Words from my own heart. To me snakes, including my own, are some of the most beautiful creatures on earth. I've had two pet rattlesnakes in my time and numerous other species. If I see one, I consider myself blessed. There are far fewer than there used to be.

-it

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Thanks for the reminder! I love snakes, and, in fact, there is a very beautiful and shy female copperhead snake

 

geocaching: I met a nice 4 foot female rattlesnake in the snake den, just feet from the cache container; she

 

I will probably regret it, but probably be amused, But pray tell Vinny, how do you know they were female?

 

Jim

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What’s the last thing a snake of any type hears before it dies?

 

“Look, a cottonmouth!”

 

Many people mistake banded water snakes, hog nosed snakes, and even king snakes as poisonous and kill them assuming the snake is a threat, or don't bother to learn to identify them at all and think "Any snake is a bad snake, the only good snake is a dead snake!"

 

Even if you’re not a snake person, there is one snake you should try to love... the various kinds of King snakes!

 

King snakes are ophiophagous (meaning they eat other snakes) including venomous snakes.

 

When the king snake attacks a poisonous snake, it is usually bitten, but the venom has no effect on the king snake. Perhaps someday we will be able to study the king snake and learn why venom is not toxic to it and be able to use this to create immunity for humans from all poisonous snakes.

 

I seed my lake property with King snakes and let them grow in the wild, they kill or scare off other snakes and I rarely see any others.

 

See

Edited by TheAlabamaRambler
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This was not while geocaching but, years ago I was driving for Lanter Courier and while cruising down a country highway I spotted a large bull snake on the road ahead. It looked like it had been run over. I looked in the rear view and saw the coast was clear. Slowing to a crawl, I swung the door open, leaned out, snatched it off the pavement and dropped it onto my lap.

 

It started to move, but just a little. The poor thing had been hit and was not going to live long. By the time I got home it was almost gone. My 7-year old daughter got to hold it for a while before it gave up the ghost. Because of its dire condition I was able to photograph it w/o hindrance. One of the shots I took is shown as a scanned slide below.

 

bullsnakecopy.jpg

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It is warming up here in Southern California. This will be my first summer as a geocacher. I was wondering what people do during the warm months when the snakes are out. It doesn't have to be just SoCal cachers.

 

Also, do you have any snake encounter stories? What happened, What did you do?

 

Since you cache in the same area as we, you will come across rattlesnakes. The picture below was taken on a morning hike. This Red Diamond never rattled at us and wanted nothing more than to sun himself on the rock and be left alone. We did just that.

 

We take a walking stick, walk slowly and deliberately, watching where we step. We make noise so that they know we are coming. Most of the time, they will do one of three things: (1) move out of the area, in which case you will never see them, (2) rattle a warning, in which case you will move out of the area and may never see them :anitongue: , or (3) they will lie quietly hoping that you will not see them. That was the strategy of the snake in the photo.

 

I might add, when you get to GZ, use the walking stick to poke around for the cache before sticking your hand blindly into any rocks. We have come across many snakes, including our share of rattlers, and have yet to be bothered by any of them. Most people who are bit are being stupid.

 

 

85e83be0-cb75-4a45-8bb0-31981522ffc1.jpg

 

I couldn't agree more. You definitely will see them. I've seen countless rattlers around here while geocaching and have had a few close encounters of the snake kind. A year ago I was walking behind a friend that was walking too fast through brush and he spooked one. It shot up out of nowhere about 3 feet in front of him and rattled really loud and fast. My friend jumped straight back about 5-6 feet because of the adrenaline rush. That stuck with all of us the rest of that day. We were all ten times more cautious with every step we took after that...
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King snakes are ophiophagous (meaning they eat other snakes) including venomous snakes.

Once when I entered my classroom and noticed that my 10-inch scarlet king snake (Ozzy) was far bigger in diameter than what he was two days before. I wondered what was going on. As I looked through the aquarium I noticed that my little fox snake was missing. I thought, "Oh no!" Not long after that Ozzy barfed up his over-sized meal. It was too large for him to digest and the fox snake had rotted in Ozzy's gut; hence his unusually large size.

 

I learned from that one.

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I love snakes....

Words from my own heart. To me snakes, including my own, are some of the most beautiful creatures on earth. I've had two pet rattlesnakes in my time and numerous other species. If I see one, I consider myself blessed. There are far fewer than there used to be.

-it

 

Tom, you need to go caching with me sometime. I seem to run into them all the time during the summer. Mostly bull snakes. If they are in my path, I go a different way. If there close to the cache, forget about the cache I get it another time. I lookat it as if I don't bother them they will leave me alone. I ran into what seemed like a ton of bull snakes last summer.

 

It's funny Snakes on a Plane is on TV right now. In the words of Samual L Jackson. I sick and tired of all these bleep bleep snakes on this bleep bleep plane.

 

Here's a picture of on my son and I ran into last summer. We got out of the car and ran into this guy and turned around and got in the car and left. Go ahead and call me a girl. I DON'T DO SNAKES. Also you might be able to answer. Timber from Timber & Bear was telling me that they are very rare but we do have Timber rattler snakes here in Iowa.

 

12c85c03-18cf-4df6-af97-dff4deeb52c3.jpg

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Thanks for the reminder! I love snakes, and, in fact, there is a very beautiful and shy female copperhead snake

 

geocaching: I met a nice 4 foot female rattlesnake in the snake den, just feet from the cache container; she

I will probably regret it, but probably be amused, But pray tell Vinny, how do you know they were female?

 

Jim

Its all got to do with the shape of the body in the immediate vicinity of the cloaca (aka vent, as it is called in poultry and alien grays) as it tapers down to form the tail. If the body tapers very smoothly in the vicinity of the cloaca as it tapers down to form the tail, then it is a male. If the body is thicker as it approaches the cloaca, and then seems to undergo an abrupt quantum change just behind the cloaca, transitioning abruptly to an obviously-thinner tail section, then it is a female. This is, of course, all related to the positioning of the ovaries in female snakes.

 

There are lots of good herpetology-related websites which explain it all far better than did my brief discourse above, along with pictures illustrating the appearance of snakes of each sex, if you wish to do a Google search.

 

In any case, much as Iowa Tom stated above, I always feel blessed when I encounter a snake (or a lizard, or a turtle) in the wild. Now, encountering a reptoid reptilian in the wild is an entirely different matter, because they are, as we all know from listening to Art Bell's Coast to Coast, emotionless alien beings who are the minions of the evil alien grays...

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We've only encountered a snake once while caching along the econ river here in the Orlando area. We were with a group of friends and it a slithered under a rather large fallen tree trunk we were getting ready to step over. :D It wanted nothing to do with us as much as we wanted nothing to do with it!! When it came my turn to step over the trunk I was extremely cautious as where I was stepping on the other side :unsure: Down here we have our share of snakes so I am told, even have a few black racers in our very own back yard. I see them once in a great while out sunning themselves. I don't like snakes much, but I have a greater fear of spiders. Those of which we see much more of while caching. Than there's the fire ants...oh my..don't even get me started on those little boogers. Got a bite from one of those once on my foot...my whole foot swelled up and the top of my foot turned purple. I'd hate to see what would happen to me if a venomous snake would get me. B)

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I see them all the time. A few rattlers, a few copperheads and lots of black snakes. I just walk around them.

 

On time we were at a cache site and realized we were in the middle of what appeared to be a nest of black snakes. There were dozens of them all over. Huge ones. My wife was near panic mode. Knowing they aren't poisonous they didn't bother me. Now if I were a mouse out there I'd be scared spitless.

 

Here's one that stopped to pose for me

 

357dd33d-cffb-43d1-895c-1abc4ba5ee8e.jpg

 

Another black snake, different place. I think these are called Black Racers

 

03e10d15-1f96-4736-afc4-5ac92b875715.jpg

 

Here is a little rattler that we passed going to a cache a few seasons ago:

 

aa89e69e-0105-4ea3-8bd9-d0f4ea160d67.jpg

 

It's a little telling that the pictures of the non-venomous snakes are crystal clear while the small little rattler is blurry. :unsure:

 

Never would have expected it from Briansnat though.

 

Yeah the rattler was taken with zoom on full and it was kind of dark, so the shutter speed was slow - hence the blurring. Non poisionous snakes I have no problem getting as close as I need to. It kind of freaks my wife out though when I'm a foot from a snake snapping photos.

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Make noise so they know I'm coming.

 

Snake do not hear. Vibrations? No, I don't think so!

 

Determining a snake's sex from casual field observations--nope.

 

 

Actually, I never said they can "hear" in the sense that you and I can. Like many other animals, snakes have two ways of detecting sounds: earthborne and airborne. While snakes lack external and middle ear structures (including the tympanum, or ear drum), they do have inner ear structures which have been shown experimentally to receive airborne sound waves. Airborne sounds are transmitted to the lung from the skin receptors to the eighth cranial nerve and inner ear. In addition, earthborne vibrations are passed through the belly muscles to special receptors along the spine and thus transmitted to the brain.

Either way, by not taking care to move silently, and by tapping on rocks and the ground with your walking stick, they will know you are approaching.

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I have a walking stick, or trekking poles, with me on all my caching adventures and am usually very cautious when I think I am in "snake habitat," using a stick ahead of me like a blind person's white cane. However, one day I was walking up a hill where the bushes were spaced apart to make the "bush-whacking" easy. Snakes were not on my mind at all untill this guy rattled at me!

 

c05dc683-c50e-49d4-9b17-72fb187a9c9f.jpg

 

Another interesting encounter was with this "cache guardian."

 

a627f909-f56e-4ea5-8681-6958ebb739ec.jpg

 

Yes, that is the cache the snake is resting on . . . :unsure:

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Yet another discussion that makes me glad I live in the Pacific Northwest! :D

In the area that I normally cache, the only type of snake we have are garter snakes.

I'll do you one better - NO SNAKES AT ALL IN NEWFOUNDLAND! :D

 

I have handled a friend's corn snakes on several occasions, and once a boa constrictor and a python, but before I moved from New Brunswick, finding a garter snake in the woodpile was a heart stopping moment. :unsure: That fear was (and is still) totally irrational, but in that moment of surprise all that was in my mind was getting distance between it and me. B)

 

Sorry, but I was not able to determine its gender! ;)

 

If I ever have the opportunity to cache in the Snake Country USA, or any other such region, I may have to either stick to uraban caches, or carry a reeaally looonnnng stick to poke at things.

 

Skisidedown

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Yet another discussion that makes me glad I live in the Pacific Northwest! :)

In the area that I normally cache, the only type of snake we have are garter snakes.

My first snake bite was from a garter snake. I deserved it however. I would rather be bitten by a garter snake or by a fox snake or by any other nontoxic species that poop on a person than be pooped on. The smell is awful! After grabbing a large fox snake on a field trip with a bunch of kids I had to hold my hands out the bus window on the way back.

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rattlesnake.jpg

 

Here's a safe snake encounter (unless you have a heart condition): Rattlesnake Eggs

I will never forget the time I opened a plain envelope that contained one of those critters!

 

I never understood why they don't make it illegal to transport those things in unmarked packaging.

(self edited to remove nasty political comments. Bad comments! Bad, bad comments! Go stand in the corner!)

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I wish we had more snakes up in my neck of the woods. I miss seeing snakes. Even seeing a Garter Snake around here is getting rare. :)

 

They're just so cool. My roomate in my second year of college had kept her two Ball Pythons on campus for four years without getting busted. That was, until they got out and scared the pants off one of our other roomates. :)

 

Then they went to live with my then boyfriend. :)

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I wish we had more snakes up in my neck of the woods. I miss seeing snakes. Even seeing a Garter Snake around here is getting rare. :)

 

They're just so cool. My roomate in my second year of college had kept her two Ball Pythons on campus for four years without getting busted. That was, until they got out and scared the pants off one of our other roomates. :)

 

Then they went to live with my then boyfriend. :)

Emphasis mine.

I too have noticed how dramatically the snake population has decreased, at least here in NE Iowa. I never see them in town anymore. That is sad.

 

My ball python, even though relatively small at the time, holds the record for how many teeth holes I've gotten in one bite: 27. Like an idiot I held a small dead mouse up to Bud's nose in an attempt to "hand feed him." Hand feed is right. My thumb was a tasty warm target. Ball pythons have heat sensors along the upper jaw. He wouldn't let go. That was a first for me. All the other times they bit they let go right away. I called out to my daughter to get a Popsicle stick out of the force feeding kid so I could pry his jaws off my thumb w/o hurting him. Man that hurt! My girl started crying because her dad was in agony. It was the worst bite I've ever experienced and I've been bitten by a lot of things. A crow is the second most painful bite. It's like a pair of scissors clamped down on a person's fingers.

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Thankfully I was never tasted by her pythons, though I believe they took a bite out of her once or twice. I hear it hurts!

 

When they got out that one time they were pissed off because they were so cold (the floors here in the winter can get pretty chilly!) so when I went to retrieve them they took a swing or two at me. Thankfully I was wearing my winter leather gloves, though they never bit, it made me feel better.

 

We made sure the lock on the lid stayed locked after that!

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Thankfully I was never tasted by her pythons, though I believe they took a bite out of her once or twice. I hear it hurts!

 

When they got out that one time they were pissed off because they were so cold (the floors here in the winter can get pretty chilly!) so when I went to retrieve them they took a swing or two at me. Thankfully I was wearing my winter leather gloves, though they never bit, it made me feel better.

 

We made sure the lock on the lid stayed locked after that!

The other times I've been bit it didn't hurt much, even the time when I received 17 holes from my Columbian red-tailed boa. I describe being bitten by a large snake as reminding me of the sound that I hear when I tear through a spider's web. What I feel (I don't think I hear it) is the tearing of the collagenous fibers in my dermis. It's like the crunch sound (I detect via bone conduction) that I detect while a hypodermic syringe is plowing through my gums at the dentist office.

 

The one time that I was startled by a snake "getting out" was when I woke up one morning and saw my pet rattler half way out of his cage. A mouse had chewed through the window screen and the snake got through the half-inch hardware cloth. Fortunately he got stuck. The first thing that hit my mind was, "My dad is going to be soooooo mad!" The cage was at the foot of my bed.

 

By the way, I tell my students that a reptile does not get angry. They are either striking because they think you are the food or because they are defending themselves.

Edited by Iowa Tom
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