All of those venomous snakes and WNV mossies -

Austin Stevens makes snakes look so much interesting fun - if you have the agility and reflexes of a martial arts expert.

Growing up in SWLA, we had all the nasties: cottonmouths, diamondbacks, copperheads, coral snakes. PLUS alligators. As mush time as I spent outside, it's a wonder that I survived. Never bitten, though I've come close. ANY venemous snake I see around the house or in the woods is dead, if I can help it. I've seen too many painful land deadly results of snake bites.

I lived in the Mississippi Delta for a while and SWLA has nothing on the Delta for cottomouths. Rented an old farm in Dundee, MS; the place had not been habitated for several years and was quite overgrown and had a creek running on the western boundary. Yard was full of frogs and the creek was full of snakes. As one might imagine, snakes love to eat frogs, thus my yard was full of HUGE cottonmouths. Constant battle killing them, was aprehensive about leaving my dogs in their kennel. I rarely went outside without knee high thick rubber boots AND my 9mm or a 22 mag rifle. Finally, borrowed a couple of Hamshire pigs from a guy I rented pasture space to and let them f up the snake population. Those big bastards LOVED killing and eating snakes. It was an interesting summer.

And, yes, water moccasins will all ball up in a tree, sometimes for mating. A perfect time to shoot the nasty buggers.Occasionally, the "snake ball" will fall off the tree into the water and float downstream. Quite a few legends about water skiers, coming off their skis and landing amongst the snakes. Don't know the truth to that, but that would NOT be a good situation.

Never took up much water sking, except in the salt water side of our estuary. Freshwater had the aformentioned snakes plus alligators and the huge alligator garfish. Oh yeah, snapping turtles too.

If youve ever been in a boat with a water snake near by you do want it to be hp powered ,in my case it was man powered .Just as I took out from the bank in a row boat at the guadalupe river I spotted a wake from the other side some 70 yds away ,it slowly made a beadline for the boat and seemed to be gaining and within 5 minutes I realized it was as it made up some 50 yrds in that time.Not willing to take on a passenger I headed for the bank and quickly off boarded like a squirel .It came up to the boats side and slithered further down the bank .If snakes have fun making fools of us this one was having a ball .

Two more...I was mowing the area around one of the ponds Saturday afternoon and spotted an adult copperhead...probably 18"-24" long. I must have upset him with the prior pass of the mower because he was cocked and ready to go off when I finally saw him. Not sure if he could have tagged up on me or not since the bottom of your feet are about 12" off the ground when resting on the deckplate of that mini-tractor. With boots there's another 10" or so of height. One thing is certain, had he struck at me, I'd have been changing my BVDs. Anyway, my little Kubota has a loader bucket that's perfect for dispatching his kind.

Then, this afternoon, a juvenile. <10" and a gray-green color. I must have stepped right on or over him getting a water hose that went to a stock trough. I went back and gave him a Red Wing headache (I stomped on his head good and hard).

I like to think I keep a pretty good eye out for the SOBs but that little one surprised me. Jeez.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

I knew a guy who was a Security Guard at an exclusive private club in West Texas. This place was so big it had an RV park and a small old west town made up of old buildings from the area that had been moved to the place. Think of it as a Country Club with camping and RV spaces.

They told guests the place was not Westworld and that all the snakes and creatures that lived there really lived there. This did not seem to sink in to a lot of folks so he started killing Rattlers and hanging them on the side of the Trading Post.

Fewer people wandered off the trails after that, and the 'Snake Farm' became a popular place for folks to have their pictures taken.

Just in keeping with the theme of the thread title...

Man bitten by rattlesnake at Washington state Walmart - Yahoo! News

nowhere safe....oh dear

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You're a daisy if you do.
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84 Euro 240D 4spd. 220.5k sold
04 Honda Element AWD
1985 F150 XLT 4x4, 351W with 270k miles, hay hauler
1997 Suzuki Sidekick 4x4
1993 Toyota 4wd Pickup 226K and counting

I hate snakes, Jock! I hate 'em!
Snakes on Indy's Plane - YouTube

Thats all I got to say about that.

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Guamanian Plan For Snakes

Take a dead rat, stuff it with Tylenol, drop them by airplane over the jungle . . . and wait.

makins for an extra large belt and a couple pair of boots

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1989 300ce smoke silver / brazil, in a constant state of flux ~~~

What? Nobody to 'hold my beer?' ...nope, they were too busy changing underwear after seeing that big SOB.

Seriously, while that's a big snake, it looks a lot bigger that it really is because the cracker is holding it right in front of the camera (a lame fish trick).

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

Many moons ago, when I had time to play golf, we occasionally did so at a course between Burnet and Marble Falls called Delaware Springs. A truly nice place to commit said atrocity but, because of the buzzworm problem, you certainly didn't go wandering around in the rough looking for that new Titleist 3 you shanked out into the weeds.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.