When I was about 8 or so, my brother and I were out in the "workshop" looking for nails or something, moved a keg (yes, keg) of nails, and this frigging Milk Adder came at us with it's mouth wide open and hissing. We left posthaste.
A few days later, on top of the woodpile, I found an entire skin, I assume from that snake, that measured 48 3/4 inches!
Maybe that's not BIG where you're from, but up here in Maine, it's frigging huge!
My Dad says when he was young on the same farm, a "black snake" came down from the loft in the barn, and was so long that it's head was down through the hole in the floor while it's tail was still up in the loft!! would have had to be at least 10 feet long!
My brother's FIL and his friend say they were chased away from a pond by a "black snake" whose head was "as tall as they were" while it was chasing them! (It apparently had it's head up like a cobra as it came after them)

Well, look at the bright side: that black snake that chased them with its head held high probably wasn't a Black Mamba. Probably would have caught them and it'd be all over for them. I dread the thought of people keeping foreign snakes like that that may escape. It sometimes happens.

But I can easily top your account. A python escaped from a pet shop in New Brunswick a few years ago, slithered through the A/C system, and constricted two boys in a home next door. Killed both. Hadn't swallowed either by the time of discovery.

The RCMP investigated, and it was speculated that charges might be filed against the pet store owner. Never read how that case ended.

Here in the South, rattlesnakes can grow quite long. An old photo apparently not faked, shows several men holding an Eastern Diamondback about 11 feet long. Others to eight feet have been measured in more recent times.

What is a "milk adder"? You need to give the real name of this snake to be understood. These local yokel names can be misleading. An adder is another name for a viper. Outside of a Russell's Viper (Tic Polonga) in a Sherlock Holmes story, I doubt if any drink milk, let alone milk cows for it.

Back in my Puppy Dog Days, worked on a pipeline up in Ohio.
The crew was mostly LA boys who were off their medication.
Super jokers!
And if you showed any fear of snakes, they would spend the day looking for snakes to throw on you.
One day they caught a regular black snake - bull snake about 8 feet long.
They passed it around and when I held it up, it's tail dragged the ground.
We turned it loose.
It will eat a bunch of vermin!

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

For me it's a close tie between a Great Basin Gopher snake and a California Kingsnake. The gopher snake had just eaten something and was rather torpid but I didn't want to stress him by mauling him about. Didn't have a tape handy but I would estimate somewhere between 5.5 and 6.0 feet.

The California King was extremely active and wanted nothing to do with me, my dad or my camera. Dad reckoned around 7 feet, but I'm thinking nearer 6.5. I have pictures of both somewhere.

Edited to add picture of the Gopher Snake. Note that he disappears out of the frame on the right under the brush.

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Release the Kraken

I've handled a longer indigo snake at a snake park, but in the wild, I guess a water moccasin of about five feet was the longest for me.

Biggest snake I have seen is the canebrake rattlesnake we saw on a gents property down by El Campo, Texas. At least 5ft and big around as my forearm.

The one's practically in my face.
The 8 ft. black between the ties of a retaining wall at my folk's place in Otto, NC.
The coiled D-back in the plot I was clearing for a friend in Lake Placid, FL. The old boy pulled a Model 10 hid in his wheelchair and removed the head with 3 shots. He kept the rattles, the rest was skinned, cured and stitched to a piece of green felt. I think my brother has it somewhere, what remains is at least 5 1/2 ft.
The cottonmouth tucked under the myrtle in the middle of a trail near Monroe Station. No idea of the length but it was thicker than my calf.
By far the biggest was the baby D-back my youngest, about three at the time ran up on while chasing a throw toy. His cousin spotted it and stopped my son. I pinned it with a Frisbee, my brother picked it up and we walked it to Josephine Creek and gave it a swimming lesson. The two footer swam quite well the other direction.

Do you "Google"??? Try it, you will find lots of information.

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Gunsmithing since 1961

Longest snake I remember seeing was a 7-ft. python, owned by an officer I served with in Vietnam, offered for entertainment during its monthly feeding ritual (ate full grown chickens, took an hour or more on the patio of the officers club).

In southern Colorado we have prairie rattlesnakes in relative abundance. I have encountered them frequently, usually in the 24" to 36" range. Preferred method of dealing with them is a 12-gauge #6 shot. Couple of weeks ago I was sitting on my patio at 9:00PM and saw some motion in the gravel about 3 feet from my left foot, turned out to be a young prairie rattler, about 18" or so. Introduced the snake to Mr. Garden Shovel, and the snake kind of lost his head over the experience. While slashing and trashing on the snake in the gravel my wife opened the back door and asked what was going on. I told her to go inside. She asked what I was doing, I told her I was killing a rattlesnake. Heard the door slam shut, heard the deadbolt lock click shut. Wife eventually consented to allow me back into the house after assurances that the rattlesnake was done for. Third rattlesnake we have had in our development (20 homes, private cul-de-sac) this year, so we are all paying attention.

Regardless of the size or type, snakes will always get your heart going and your blood pressure peaked out.

That's the infamous Black Racer. One got after my FIL, too. It was reared up and chasing him down a dirt road.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

When I was a kid my dad took me rabbit hunting near lake Ft. Gibson in Northern Oklahoma. There had been some flooding and there were mouse nests all over the place so the next day we came back with dads 1928 take-down Marlin .22 pump loaded with rat shot. He would kick a nest and mice would run out in all directions and I shot that pump action as fast as I could! I was having a ball then my dad kicked one nest and this huge snake uncoiled out of it and it was hissing so loud you could hear it 50 yards away. The snake was between my dads legs and the head was almost level with his crotch and dad let out a yell and jumped backwards. He then realized it was just a Bull snake and started laughing out loud meanwhile I was racking that pump shooting the snake in the head as fast as I could and it took all 14 rounds and was still moving. Later my dad held it up by the tale and he was about 6' and the head was still dragging the ground so the snake was pretty close to 7 foot long and really fat!

In the wild,just the small 1 foot garden snakes. When I worked at a local community TV station,we had the local animal show person come in to do a show. After the show,I got to handle the tarantulas and a 10-12ft albino python. I always check out the snakes when I go to Petsmart.

Oh yeah, Vietnam...

On an assignment with some Air Force military police we were entering one of the gunnery ranges and as we go to the gate there was a Western Diamondback curled up. Here are two guns with M-16s and their revolvers but they decided it would be cute to kill this snake by throwing rocks at it.

After a few minutes I had to get into the act and found a huge rock. I smashed it on the snake and killed it. We measured it to be justs over 6 ft. Not the biggest but it was the first snake I've come across after moving to Arizona.

In South Africa, I saw a black mamba moving quickly through some thigh high grass, faster than I walk, about 10 ft from my car door. Its head was 3 to 4 ft. above ground, neck arched, so it was 8-10 ft long. I was glad I listened to the Rangers and had my car windows up. That thing was spooky.
Otherwise, the local black racer snakes, about 5 ft long. Copperheads around here are usually less than 2 ft.

Biggest I saw was mebbe a 4 foot Prairie rattler. Not a lot of big snakes in the PNW.

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Even older, even crankier....

Saw two large pythons in South Africa. No idea how long, but one had to be as round as a stove pipe! Possibly called Rock Pythons?

Excellent speciman!!

Sent from my SM-N930T using Tapatalk

The largest snake I ever saw in the wild was a Python in Nam. It was about 12 feet long. We ate it. Here in PA where I do a lot of multi day hiking in state forests the largest snake I have ever seen was about. Five foot timber rattle snake. But that are not a big problem because they prefer to retreat from people. The pesky snakes are the copperheads that get to about three feet and love to slither around in tall grass. Their venom is unlikely to be lethal, but who needs any snake bite. That make hiking in the bush a real exercise in situational awareness.

Tripped over a bull snake that was 5-6' long and as thick as my forearm while hiking a few years ago.He was stretched out on a mound digesting at least three ground squirrels.I think my heart stopped for a few seconds :-0
My son worked in the oil fields in the eastern part of the state for a few years and rattlers were a pretty common sight.One pad was so infested that they shut it down for a week to move the darn things.
Longest one he saw was about 5'.Said he ran it over...several times!

I wanted to be a herpetologist in my younger days but figured the only way to make a living at it was gathering venom and that didn't appeal to me. Spent many afternoons in highschool looking for local snakes in Alabama and Florida. The largest was an Indigo, in the North Port Charlette area of Florida. My guess was close to ten feet, thicker than my wrist right behind the head. I caught it , knew I couldnt keep it since it was protected, an awesome specimen though.

The beneficial Bull Snake up here commonly grows to 6 feet. The largest one I remember was in a prairie dog town; nearly 7 feet long and as thick as my forarm. Unfortunately, they are confused with Prairie Rattlers by some and are killed

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John

When I was building a garage for the house,I stepped out of a side door to see this beasty serpent rear up..with a full size toad in its jaws! Scared the hell out of me..and the smell was enough to make you puke. I ran over to the shop to get my 35mm camera and snapped this photo..only to use up the last shot. I then had to run back to the shop,reload the 35mm..and by the time I got back..the 6 foot beast had vanished! Nobody believed me till I had that roll of film processed. Biggest snake I had ever seen..never saw it again. Still amazes me how fast it disappeared with that huge frog in it's mouth. I hate snakes..but don't kill them,unless they don't move out of my path with the mower fast enough..

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Jury finds python owner not guilty in deaths of New Brunswick boys | Canada | Ne

Hmmmm....After this thread, I've come to realize snake stories are like fish stories.

I once startled an Indigo snake in my driveway eating my car.

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NRA Benefactor

At K-9 school at Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio we always has stake out chains with us (20 ft. chains for securing a dog to a tree or such when on break). Made great rattle snake killers. We would catch them early in the morning when it was cold. They would be coiled up on the gopher mounds trying to warm up, but being cold they were very slow. Then we had rattle snake cook outs, never cared to much for that part though.

Breakaway's frog eater must have been a mutant.
A three foot garter snake down here is considered large.
Could it be some species I don't recognize?

I was doing some work at Streamsong golf resort near Lakeland and saw an Eastern Diamondback that was at least 6' long.
William Hasst from the Miami Serpentarium retired to Punta Gorda over here on the West coast and rumor has it that there may have been some "exotic" species that may have gotten loose in the years before he passed away. He was the most bitten man on the planet, but it seemed to do him no harm...he lived to the ripe old age of 100! He was quite a sensation when he ran his serpentarium. When I was in grade school, we would make yearly field trips there and everyone looked forward to him wrangling and milking the king cobras. The guy played by Strother Martin in "Ssssssss" was loosely based on Haast.

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USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

The water moccasin my dad and I found by the lake in our backyard around 50 years ago is up to about 20 feet long by now.

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LIVE FROM THE DAWGHOUSE

had a juvenile racer cruise thru my garden last year,

I let him be, since they don't eat the veggies,


as a kid, my grandparents ran a dairy farm,
plenty of black snakes (either racers or king snakes) that were routinely over 6 feet,

we kids were allowed to look at them but not mess with them,

grandma would ofter relocate them to the corn crib or barn, plenty of vermin hanging about for them to eat, and the left the barn cats alone,

now if grandma saw one climbing a tree , it was killed,
she said a snake that would climb a tree would climb in the house,, and that was not allowed

The ED rattler on the left was going almost seven ft.

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This gopher snake was found on the back yard wall of my house several years ago. I estimated, comparing him to my own height of 6'0" and seeing him as longer than I am tall, to be about 7 feet long. Sure scared the heck out of the yard men working on the other side of the wall!

John

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

Sonoran Gopher snake. Saw a nice one at Montezuma's Castle a few years ago when he came out to play with the tourists.

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Release the Kraken

Uh yeah, don't tell us, your car was a Chevy Impala - right?


Regards,

Dave

Biggest was a rattlesnake in a pipeline ditch in Tyler TX in 1979. Had the "immigrant workers" scurrying real fast out of the ditch. Rattles ran from your wrist to the tip of your finger. Stretched out, he was over 8' long and fairly fat - guess he must have recently eaten. The foreman took the skins and those workers divvied up the meat. Snake was asleep at the time.

MEANEST goes to the good old cottonmouth; here they will drop out of trees into your boat, or swim up to and then climb in your boat - very aggressive monsters......

The biggest is probably a 5' western diamond back and a timber rattler of the same length. The most recent was this 2.5' timber rattler that slithered between my legs mid stride, while backpacking yesterday.

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That's correct. I think that's the only python in Africa, but it comes in two sub-species.

I saw a photo of one that bit an electric fence and got killed.

They are pretty fierce. I think they sometimes take African children. Most such occurrences wouldn't be reported to such authorities as might be interested.

Nevada is much too far west to have seen a true Timber Rattler, Crotalus horridis or its sub-species, the Canebrake rattler.

We have them in eastern Texas, but that's about as far west as they get. It's the snake on the Revolutionary War flag, Don't Tread On Me.

I think your photo suggests a Prairie Rattler or maybe a Great Basin Rattler. I'm not too familiar with the latter or its range.

The member in Washington said they don't see a lot of very long rattlers, but they have the Northern Pacific rattler, C.v. oreganus and it is a dangerous snake. I suspect a big one there may reach 4/5 feet, but it is dangerously venomous.

Animal Planet used to feature Dr. Sean Bush treating snakebites in southern CA and many serious envenomations were by the southern form of this snake, Crotalus viridis helleri. Some of those patients nearly died.

It's common around here to see Bull Snakes 5-6 feet long. When I lived south of here we saw a lot of Sidewinders, most were 2 feet long. While out riding the ATV I came across these tracks, obviously from a Sidewinder. Largest Sidewinder tracks I have ever seen...never did see the snake.

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The black mamba (Dendroaspis polylepis) reaches 14 feet or more and is widely deemed the fastest snake, at least 7 MPH. It is also among the most lethal.

You mentioned keeping car windows up. In 2015, an American woman, a TV producer, was in a Johannesburg lion park and ignored that warning. Moreover, she leaned out a window to take a picture. A lion in her blind spot hooked her out of the car and killed her.

I just remembered that about a year after we moved to Dallas, I looked out a screened window and saw what was probably a black racer or indigo snake at least six feet long. I knew the venomous snakes by then and wasn't too disturbed, but didn't run out and try to catch it, either. I was 12. The window was partially covered with ivy and the snake was moving through that.

About a year ago, my DIL called my son to see a large rattler, maybe 5.5 feet, that was sunning atop some expensive soil that'd been delivered for her flower bed. My son was wearing a H-K 9mm, I think a M-30. I have a photo of that gun, but am not really up on the Heckler und Koch line. He was loaded with Federal's 124 grain HST JHP's. I have a pic of the snake and one shot midway along it before he hit the head blew out a considerable chunk of snake. The next shot hit the head of the writhing snake and that was that.

They live in a rural area and see a number of snakes. One part of their property seems attractive to copperheads so they're especially cautious there. They had a son last year and he'll grow up learning about snakes and other wildlife. But I doubt he'll be able to get out on his own much, as they have not only snakes but coyotes and saw a cougar twice. And there are javelina and true feral pigs nearby.

I bet that boy will have his own gun by the time I did. Barring a .410 at age six, my first was a Webley revolver at 13. At 16, I had a Colt M-1917 .45. But I didn't live where I could shoot any snakes...

I doubt that my grandson will shoot them routinely when he can, and my son doesn't, unless they're near the house. He's well aware of the role they play in controlling vermin.

My FIL was drinking one day with a guy who had worked with Bring Them Back Alive Frank Buck.
The Frank Buck guy says he heard that in a nearby village a Python had eaten a small boy who had sleeping fever.
Oh - forgot to tell you this was in West Africa.
So they get a car and call on a non-drinking MSGT to drive.
And away they go!
They find the village and locate the snake.
He seems to be in a non-active 'digestive' mode and don't want to be disturbed.
And he was spitting up bones.
My FIL who was a MD identified the bones as human.
The sober MSGT got upset with The Whole situation,
Pulled out his 1911 and blasted the snake!
I'm not sure if there's a lesson here or not.
Just another really big snake story!

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

The reference above to a black mamba reminded me of a presumably true story that dates from when the Boers/Afrikaaners were trekking north in covered wagons much like that used by US setters moving west. A mamba got upset and raced along one side of the oxen pulling a wagon and bit all of the oxen on that side of the span. Don't know how many, but at least 3-4. They all died.

Many in Africa are afraid that if you see one mamba near camp, even if you kill it, another will follow.

I think that in mating season, one just follows the scent trail of the first.

Besides the black mamba, there are two forms of Green Mamba, east and west, and the intermediate Jameson's. I've seen all in zoos and they're invariably alert and look intelligent for snakes.

C.J. P. Ionides, a famed snake trapper, said a Green Mamba got loose in a post office and shot up to the ceiling and roamed around the top of the room, terrifying all present. The shipping box it was in got opened accidentally.

When I was a kid (late 50's early 60's), I saw a black snake that was stretched across my grandparent single lane dirt driveway. It's head was in the grass on one side, it's tail was in the grass on the other. At the time it was about 25 feet long. Over the years it's shrunk to 5...maybe 6 feet.

I had a Redtail Boa as a pet for a few years. Stopped at the pet store to pick up a rat to feed...him I guess. I saw what I thought was a fire hose stretched across the parking lot. A closer look revealed it to be some kind of a big snake. I asked the guy in the store and he said it was 14 feet. True or not, I got not idea, but it was BIG.

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John 3:16 .

Well, I guess it's not "wild", but when I was still working on the police department, we fielded a call that an older lady was out picking flowers in her garden, and when she parted the plants, there was a huge snake there...she was screaming at the dispatcher that someone needed to do something. Not really a police matter, but I was intrigued and my partner and I volunteered to check it out.

Sure enough, when we got there, here was this huge (to me, anyway) Python or boa or whatever, (I'm no authority on snakes), basking in the sun. It was obviously someone's pet, and was completely relaxed, and non threatening. Had to be 5 or 6 inches in diameter, and 7 or 8 feet long. We picked him (or her, I sure don't know the difference) up, and got it in the cruiser. Well, this was too good an opportunity to miss, so we rode around with it for awhile, and had someone take our picture with it (which I still have somewhere).

Finally took it to a a local pet store, and walk in with it, the clerk says "Oh, that's Reggie!!"... Turns out that Reggie was well known, and the store folks gave us the owners address, and we took him home. Happy ending for everyone. My only encounter with a big snake.

But yesterday, I saw about a four or five foot "blacksnake" right here on my cabin porch. They keep the mouse population down (I have an indoor cat here who is supposed to take care of the indoor mice), and the blacksnakes are good neighbors, and never hurt anything.

Best Regards, Les

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SWCA 3084, SWHF 495, PGCA 3064

In June I observed a copperhead try to strike a house cat. The cat would jump out of the way, what reflexes. Copperheads around here are a 2-2 1/2 feet long. Rattle snakes about 2-6 feet. A black snake about 7 feet long lived in my mule barn for several years, she finally disappeared. As a rule, I don't kill any snakes unless a venomous one is up by the house.

1. A glossy snake (Arizona elegans)) about 5.5 feet (5'6") long=dead on road. I later read the record for the species was 5'7".

2. Driving into our camp on a friends ranch and saw a gopher snake crossing the dirt road. I laid down next to it and it was slightly longer than I was (I'm 6').

Largest I've handled was a 16' "retic" python, when I was in college and managed pet stores.

Biggest around here are the black snakes. 6 footers aren't uncommon. Had one living in my tackroom for a couple of years. He(she?) was great to have around to keep the mouse population down but I never got used to grabbing a saddle off a rack to find him (here?) coiled on it. The funniest was right after we moved into our current house, an old ranch house a bit over 100 years old. My wife hung some laundry to dry in the basement. We had some of those sticky mouse traps down there, and the lighting wasn't great. Heard a scream that would have scared a sasquatch! Ran down to find she'd stepped on a Massauga rattler (little rattler about one foot long) that had gotten stuck on the sticky trap. Luckily she stepped on the tail end. Poor little snake, I had to kill him and she quit hanging laundry down there.

About 50+ years ago I was with my Uncle and we ran across a Diamondback that was over 8 feet long. This area of Florida was a lot less lived in then. Have never seen another that size.

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.

Is it fair to judge a snakes size by hitting him with one or both front tires?