It's Spring in Texas and love is in the air!

[Jhp147]

The pictures were interesting, never seen or heard of anything like that, and I have encountered more than a couple of what we usually called coon tails. As a kid, I got close enough to be rattled by a rattler I did not see, and that broke my habit of jumping onto the piles of cross ties and 6X6s my grand dad collected...or walking where I had not yet looked. Not to mention the time I backed into a whole screened cage of them on a friend's porch in the dead of night. If you have not heard 20 or more rattlers go off within inches of the back of your leg in the dead of night, you have not lived. I have never had my blood run cold like that. I think I got rattlesnake PTSD from that. Years before that, I lived where we kept a "snake hoe" by the door on the porch, and my grandmother once used a shotgun on a rattler on the porch after poking a hole in a window screen to stick the barrel through. I try to do snakes the courtesy and stay out of their zip code, but if they are in mine, I will go into illiterate redneck with a hoe mode. If I happened upon the subjects of these photos in MY stomping grounds, I would opt for more than the snake hoe. Due to my early experiences, Indiana Jones and I have something in common, and it ain't dashing good looks or a bullwhip.
As for the pix, you learn something every day.

 

[bettis1]

This may disturb some of the snake lovers out there and I will certainly agree that the men in the boat had an opportunity to have moved away. However, it will show you that rattlers are certainly good swimmers. Not sure this is something a person with a lake house likes seeing though. Who says only moccasins like water?? Be alert when fishing!!!

This was taken in the middle of Falcon Lake.

Never under estimate a rattlesnake's ability to swim!!

Bob



http://bassfan.com/tv_play.asp?id=119

 

[deadin]

I can remember my sainted old grandmother telling about the time she was out in the yard cleaning up tree limbs that had blown down in a storm the previous night. She picked up one and there was a cottonmouth under it.
I asked "What did you do, Granma?" She said the she just put the limb back down,.........
.
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.
.
.
hard
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.
.
4 or 5 times.

 

[walkinghorse]

My grandfather and uncle's used to carry an old solid metal casting rod (solid square metal about 4-4-1/2 long)with them in the boat when fishing Elephant Butte Reservor or the local slews and Pecos River because of snakes. One hit solved the problem. Grandmother wanted more reach so she used a long handled hoe.
She was quick with it too! the wood end of the handle she reserved for grand kids who smarted off or were slow obeying!

Just a tap, but you got the message and with no arguing!

 

[S/W - Lifer]

Having worked with snakes I recognized the "dance." I saw this thread a few days ago and it really is a bit uncomfortable for me. I can take the scientist's perspective most of the time but I know what these snakes can do. Rattlers that big are a threat when in human habitat.

If it is a choice between kids, pets or my own welfare, the snake has to go. I'll soon be 62 and I'm getting too old to survive that sort of thing.

In fairness, they are one of natures marvels. Just not around my house.

 

[Jst1mr]

Every time I begin to tire of a Wisconsin winter, I read a snake thread and hope for another week of forty below weather - seems to do a fine job of venomous snake control, though I always warn visitors from the south to be alert for snowsnakes.

 

[Guest]

I made several trips to the "Best Kept Secret in the NRA" in the early '90s and I guess I must have just been down there at the right time of the year; as I got the chance to see this 'Dance' several times. As I was 'working' I didn't happen to have my camera with me any of the times I saw the 'Dancers' but I can say I was glad to have my Glock with me every time. But, since the 'Dancers' seemed to be very "occupied" at these times I didn't see any point in disturbing them. I suspect one of their relatives could have crawled up my leg and bit me where it hurts and I never would have noticed it. Kind of a Snakes' Belly Dance. Don't know if this was sex or a battle but it was an attention grabber!

 

[ingmansinc]

Now that was a nice group of pics. I learned something about snake behavior that I never knew. Thanks.

I have spent my entire life in the outdoors and have had to deal with a wide variety of animals ranging from coral snakes, bears, wolves, wild dogs, elk, alligators, and the meanest critter that anyone ever had to deal with, Mother Nature. She is unforgiving.

I would not want to take a group of people on a survival camping/canoeing trip in the wilderness that got their education watching "Survivorman". That would probably be scarier than everything else combined.

 

[DWFAN]

With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
Of life at once untie: poor venomous fool
Be angry, and dispatch.

—Cleopatra, Act V, scene II, Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare

 

[MK]

That rattler seemed to float pretty well, about
like the moccasins. The Coral snakes have some
mean venom, and one of the poisonous snakes that
have a fairly worm like head about the same size
as the body. They have em down here in TX, but
not in OK. I just remember "red-yellow kill a
fellow" as far as the stripes. Red-black is not
poisonous.

 

[bamacisa]

Back in the 1970's I was at the Golden Triangle Gun Club shooting range. I saw two snakes doing their dance (just like the picture) It was quite a site. I did not know if they were mating or fighting. I did not kill them. I have often wondered what they were doing. Now I know!

 

[bettis1]

If I recall my biology correctly, the Coral snake venom is a neurotoxin which results in respiratory paralysis where the the pit vipers(rattlers, moccasins) are hemotoxins which cause tissue necrosis. The biting method is also different. The Coral snake is much more passive and they bite and chew where the pit vipers strike and release.

I'm certainly open to correction by any of the herpetologists here.

Bob