Snakes

Just wanted to pass a note along about something that happened this past weekend. While doing a little scouting came up on some cane breaks and was I in for a shock. There was 3 or 4 Rattlers coiled up ready to go. I say 3 or 4 because I did not stay in that spot very long. It seems that I never see them during turey season but on warm days in the winter they are everywhere. I have seen 12 -15 this year alone. How many of you turkey hunters come up on snakes during the season?

I have to many run ins with them. Our club is along the Satilla river. We have lots of swamps for the Cotton Mouths . The we have a good bit of sand ridge for the rattlers.

Two years ago during turkey season I walked up on a coiled and ready canebreak. Luckily he was laying in the middle of a wide dirt path and was wasy to see.

This was the first poisionous snake I have ever seen in the woods and that is after many hours and years of walking the woods. And believe me I am always looking to avoid any snakes.

I'll probably hex myself, but honestly I don't see that many. Maybe a moccasin or 2 and a few non-venemous ones. I always wear my snakeboots though; it's not the snakes I see that worry me.

I have seen only one snake (cotton mouth) while turkey hunting and I do look out for them. I have probably walked within 5 feet of a hundred snakes and never knew it, but I haven't been bit yet.

I used to see a lot of moccasins back home in the NC swamps marshes while bull frogging or bushing duck blinds, but rarely see them when I'm in the woods turkey hunting.

Hal

On 5 occasions I have happed upon cottonmouths. One was on a sultry afternoon in early April, on high and dry ground, several hundred yards away from the nearest branch.
Another four foot cottonmouth lay on a half submerged root which I use to cross the branch when turkey hunting.
Fortunately, it had just gotten light enough as i made my way to a gobbler on the roost for me to see the cottonmouth stretched across the large root with water rushing around and over him. Strangely, it was a cool morning, but it didnt seem to faze him. I took a small stick and nudged at him until he plunged in and swam down the branch.
A couple days later, I returned to cross the same spot, and noticed the same snake (it had to be) floating in the branch about 7-8 feet upstream of the root. He turned and swam upstream away from me.
Hard as it may seem to believe, after becoming very wary of that crossing spot from then on, a year later, I went there to cross, and almost like a rerun of the previous year, there lay a moccasin across the same root facing me with the water,m once again, rushing across his slithery body. I once again coaxed him away with a stick. How strange indeed.
The last snake I saw laid on a small sandbar one morning as a friend and I made our way across a wide , shallow creek to a gobbler. He was the largest one yet at about 5 feet.
Needless to say, I long ago bought snakeproof boots for turkey hunting North Florida.