Had any encounters with a snake? Tell us about it.

IrishEyes

IrishEyes

Sharon
Location
Midwest
I have met (in order of occasions) Copperheads, what we call in Mo. Black Snake ( the biggest), Cottonmouth, and in the High Sierras a nest of baby rattlers.
Cotton Mouth and Rattlers give plenty of warning and the Black snakes are just in a hurry to get in cover. Copperheads I was never sure what to expect as they
lay there more or less telling you to leave so don't provoke me.
When children were near, I needed it to leave and it wouldn't, so I never trusted their intent.
Cottonmouth and I met while mushroom hunting and just backed away realllllly slow.

With spring coming it may be wise to read up and refresh ourselves about the bite, habit and warnings of the snakes in your region.
10 Snakes You Should Be Aware of in the US (and 4 You Don't)
 
So many encounters I probably don't remember them all. One notable one was me returning from work, dropping all my stuff on the kitchen counter and walking into my bedroom to change clothes. I stop when I entered the room and wondered why there was a belt laying on the baseboard. That shouldn't be there. Then it hit me, a black snake about 4 foot long. Only thing to do was to grab it and turn it loose outside.

I grabbed it mid body, it wrapped its tail around my arm. I scream, my dogs coming running in to see what's wrong. I drop the snake who then heads to the floor register. Starts to slither in. I grab it again. This time closer to the head that I could reach still outside the register, pulled it up, dropped it in the empty laundry hamper and carted it outside. By the time I got out there it had removed it's register necklace and slithered off to wherever snakes should be.

The next notable was my Guineas doing. I was in their coop filling feeders and waterers. When I became aware the flock was lined up outside of their outdoor pen and making the buzzing sound. That buzz sound means one thing, snake. When I looked there was a massive black and yellow snake. Hubs called it a chicken snake. It's body was as thick as my arm, it was longer than a hoe handle. A shotgun removed him.

I've killed 3 rattlesnakes with my shotgun inside of my fenced yard that my dogs use. And of course all the other non exciting snakes that aren't really a threat to anything that I just relocate.
 
robin416 said:
So many encounters I probably don't remember them all. One notable one was me returning from work, dropping all my stuff on the kitchen counter and walking into my bedroom to change clothes. I stop when I entered the room and wondered why there was a belt laying on the baseboard. That shouldn't be there. Then it hit me, a black snake about 4 foot long. Only thing to do was to grab it and turn it loose outside.

I grabbed it mid body, it wrapped its tail around my arm. I scream, my dogs coming running in to see what's wrong. I drop the snake who then heads to the floor register. Starts to slither in. I grab it again. This time closer to the head that I could reach still outside the register, pulled it up, dropped it in the empty laundry hamper and carted it outside. By the time I got out there it had removed it's register necklace and slithered off to wherever snakes should be.

The next notable was my Guineas doing. I was in their coop filling feeders and waterers. When I became aware the flock was lined up outside of their outdoor pen and making the buzzing sound. That buzz sound means one thing, snake. When I looked there was a massive black and yellow snake. Hubs called it a chicken snake. It's body was as thick as my arm, it was longer than a hoe handle. A shotgun removed him.

I've killed 3 rattlesnakes with my shotgun inside of my fenced yard that my dogs use. And of course all the other non exciting snakes that aren't really a threat to anything that I just relocate.
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O goodness you are braver than I am, I probably would have tossed a trash can over it and scoot it out the door before picking it up.
 
My funniest encounter was when my late husband and I were canoeing and has a pass under a low tree.

A harmless little green snake dropped into the canoe. He was afraid of snakes. I'm not, but I don't like it when one drops out of nowhere on me. We both went flying out of the canoe.....canoe turned over....everything in the water. I laughed about it later; he didn't.

Another time, I opened the front door and a snake slithered in. I grabbed it and it wrapped around my arm.

I wanted to know what it was (could it be a baby boa that got away?), so I got in the car and drove to a pet store about a mile away with it still curled around my arm.

Pet store owner said it was a (can't remember) and offered a trade for it. I got a couple bundles of bedding straw for the bunnies in exchange.
 
jujube said:
My funniest encounter was when my late husband and I were canoeing and has a pass under a low tree.

A harmless little green snake dropped into the canoe. He was afraid of snakes. I'm not, but I don't like it when one drops out of nowhere on me. We both went flying out of the canoe.....canoe turned over....everything in the water. I laughed about it later; he didn't.

Another time, I opened the front door and a snake slithered in. I grabbed it and it wrapped around my arm.

I wanted to know what it was (could it be a baby boa that got away?), so I got in the car and drove to a pet store about a mile away with it still curled around my arm.

Pet store owner said it was a (can't remember) and offered a trade for it. I got a couple bundles of bedding straw for the bunnies in exchange.
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Love it, cute memory! You must know your snakes really well!
 
During the warm months I encounter a snake about every day when I'm out doing chores, they never worry me since they're just doing their snake stuff.

I grew up in an old farm house and snakes would get in often. My room had exposed wood timers and I recall waking up one night hearing a rustling noise, thinking it was a rat or mouse I flipped on my flashlight and there was a good sized black snake slithering across a wood beam. By the time I got a step ladder to reach him it was gone, I figured it went down into the wall where the beam connected. I was on alert for a few days but I never saw it again, not something I wanted crawling into my bed.
 
I stream fished a lot in the mountains while growing up and as a young adult, but I had learned at an early age to always walk on top of rocks and logs and never step over them, but instead to step up and jump forward. So, anyway, it always served me well with no close encounters.

However, when doing a little rock climbing in the sierras, I was just pulling myself up over the crest of a small ledge (About 3 ft), and just as my head cleared the ledge, there was a rattler staring right at my face. I immediately froze, and then ever so slowly lowered my head below the ledge. He never struck or moved, but it was a very unsettling encounter. I was just lucky.
 
I got mentioned in the grade school paper for finding a large (To me at the time) black snake near the playground. The recess monitor wasn't to thrilled about it, not sure what happened to the snake once I gave it to the custodian, hopefully they didn't kill it.

As a teen I was helping a friend cleanup their clubhouse on the river, in Missouri, and we killed several Copperheads in the process.
 
I don't know one kind of snake from another, so I don't mess with any. A few years ago, a large grayish snake was entwined through the burglar bars that encases the sliding glass door leading to the patio. I called the City Animal Control services, and a man brought a long pole. It had a metal clamp on the far end that he could operate with a hand control, and he used that to grasp it put it into a cage. I tried to find out what they would end up doing with it, but got no answer.
 
When I was about 10 years old, I ran out the front door of our home barefoot, and saw a snake crawling across the lawn ..

somehow in my excitement, I managed to step right on the snake! … guess it wasn’t poisonous, but I felt that snake under my foot for the longest time.
 
I lived in the Calif hills for some years, and still have a cabin up there, so I've seen my share of snakes. Mostly timber rattlesnakes. Obvious by their name, they like wood cabins and stacks of firewood.

People who live in mountain towns intentionally build their homes pretty far apart so that snakes have plenty of space, and are less likely to come inside your house. In 40-some years, I've only found a snake inside my cabin once. Like just about everyone up there, I owned a snake grabber, so I just snatched it up and took it out into the woods.

We don't kill snakes unless we really have to, because most of them eat rodents. Rodents love coming in your house.
 
Many snakes, King snakes, Gopher snakes, Rattlesnakes. Have found several Gopher snakes in the house, I just pick them up and escort them outside. Haven't come across a Rattler{knocks on wood} around this house, but have in other locations and at work.
I had a California King snake as a pet for....around 27 years. He loved to eat mice.
 
I was walking to the store and saw what I thought was a colorful necklace someone dropped but it moved and it was a coral snake, not sure if the poisonous one or not.

We have the black ones that crawl around the grass sometimes and we have a covered enclosed porch to keep them out.
 
JustBonee said:
When I was about 10 years old, I ran out the front door of our home barefoot, and saw a snake crawling across the lawn ..

somehow in my excitement, I managed to step right on the snake! … guess it wasn’t poisonous, but I felt that snake under my foot for the longest time.
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I know what you mean.

My daughter stepped on a snake once, and I shot it. She was 5 or 6, and on her way to the outhouse after dark. That was one of only two times I've ever shot a snake. Maud was super-careful where she walked after that, and never failed to put on her shoes before going outside after sunset.

She shuddered every time she thought about how that snake felt under her foot. But I think what made her most cautious was seeing me shoot "the poor thing." She felt really sad about that.
 
Murrmurr said:
I know what you mean.

My daughter stepped on a snake once, and I shot it. She was 5 or 6, and on her way to the outhouse after dark. That was one of only two times I've ever shot a snake. Maud was super-careful where she walked after that, and never failed to put on her shoes before going outside after sunset.

She shuddered every time she thought about how that snake felt under her foot. But I think what made her most cautious was seeing me shoot "the poor thing." She felt really sad about that.
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oh the poor snake …my thought too…. he didn’t do anything wrong.:)
 
Over the years, we've seen many, many snakes on our property. Various sizes, from ones maybe 18" long and thin (not much more than a pencil width). Some of the thinner ones have a black body with a red stripe, some look similar (though longer) with yellow stripes. But even in the warmer seasons, it's not like we see a snake every day.

None of the local snakes have a poisonous bite. Rattlers, for instance thrive in a drier environment, and can be found to the west in a region with old-farm clearings and native pine trees.

There's one snake here that is off-putting simply by its ugliness. It's often about a meter long, an inch in diameter, and has dull grey skin. In our region it's commonly known as a "rubber snake". I've only seen one a couple times.
 
CaliforniaHerps.com, Reptiles and Amphibians of California

California foothills given a climate where freezing temperatures are uncommon, have an abundance of snakes. As a kid with fast reflexes, living several years in what had been open landscapes northeast of Sacramento, I enjoyed hand catching any creatures that included anything in creeks and many land moving lizards, snakes, frogs, skinks, salamanders, grasshoppers, and butterflies. Became an expert at despite pinchers, grabbing crayfish that we used as bait for fishing.

As to snakes, hand grabbed gopher, bull, garter, rosy boas, yellow bellied racers, most often. One grabs around the neck so they cannot bite. Garter snakes may have strong unpleasant odors. Of course walking in landscapes, have always been careful at any rattling sounds and have seen plenty of Northern Pacific Rattlesnakes. The below rattlesnake was in dried stream channel sands in Death Valley NP in 2016. Snake stayed where it was, still, as I managed to quietly move my tripod close enough without spooking the creature out of its comfortable sleeping spot, for this downsized for web herein, Sony a6000 SEL55210mm zoom lens 4700 by 4000 pixel rare high detail photo.

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The most ornery reptiles to hand grab safely are rather common, alligator lizards that will readily bite (non-poisonous).
 
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My first husband collected reptiles as a hobby. His biggest and favorite was a boa constrictor, about 7 feet long. One night our old house was cold so he put the big guy in a pillow case and put it in bed with us. We woke up in the morning and it was gone. Young hubs searched and searched, worried that it had gone outside and frozen to death. I smiled in secret.

About a year later I was home alone with my baby boy. Young hubs was working nights for the Columbus Zoo. I put my son in his crib and then, as I was leaving the room, I reached up in the dark to open the door all the way and felt what I thought was a quilt thrown across the top of the door. Of course it was the, boa, back home and now over ten feet long.

I ran downstairs and got a trash can that had a lid, grabbed him behind the neck and quickly wrestled him into the trash can and fastened down the lid. When young hubs came home and heard about it he was all concerned that the snake might have died from lack of oxygen. It was fine. I sighed in secret.
 
Only once when hiking in the Arches National park in Utah some kind of fairly decent size snake was sunning itself right in the middle of the hiking path. No idea what kind it was so doing the right thing we got off the path to leave it alone. Looked back & it was still there.

Next day while hiking I found a branch that was perfect for brushing it against my wife's leg. For some reason she didn't think it was funny.
 
Happy Heart said:
We used to encounter them while horseback riding in Sedona so we always caring tubing incase one of the horses was bit on the nose to prevent it from suffocating.
But, who can forget this sad story: https://abcnews.com/US/snake-house-family-home-idaho-turns-satans-lair/story?id=13851600
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That poor couple and how sneaky not to admit there was an unusual snake problem so they could have have someone see if anything could be done prior to buying it. Sedona horseback riding! Must have been heavenly! Envious here!
 
My hubby admitted to me this morning that the reason he is not real thrilled about going on the boat on our lake here is
that he saw a few water snakes last time out. :( He does not believe me they don't fly into the boat! I saw them too but they were
not cottonmouth so it didn't bother me so I forgot about it.
 
I'm using voicemail here so I'm gonna be talking about this story now we saw a snake under our porch but it wasn't until the chickens kept looking under the porch and they would stop crying until finally we started looking under the porch and we saw a snake head a big 1 and then we saw that it was a copperhead and they're poisonous so I took a risk and I took 122 rifle and stuck it in the pipe where it was in and shot and that was the end of that story
 
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