re: Snake Stories: Too Close for Comfort Edition

Couple of near experiences for me living on the land my 2x great grandad bought around 1870 in NWLA.

1st is short and easy.

Was working swing shift at a hospital, means leaving early afternoon, home after midnight. So I step out of the West facing front door and about halfway through the step onto the concrete front porch I notice the long black snake lying against the front step sunning himself, just in time to add a quick hop into my step. Black Racer.

#2
Earlier while grandparents still in the house Mom grew up in Grandad decided to burn trash so I went with him. He was 79 and sat in one of those old metal yard chairs from the 60's. I leaned back resting my butt on the old duck pen he had made from 2x4 and chicken wire, about 3' tall.

All of a sudden he yells "Look Out!!!" and I see he has a scared look on his face and has grabbed both arms of the chair like he didn't know whether to jump up in the chair or jump away, literally white knuckled. So without even looking I push off the coop and jump probably 3-4 feet straight out and look back. HUGE copperhead has head poked around corner of the coop about 6" between where I was and grandad.

Got the hoe and grandad killed the largest copperhead he had ever seen, which is saying a lot as he literally hobo'd as a teen orphan in the 1920's, worked fields and farms from DFW to OKC to N. AR to CENLA. He tossed it into the remains of the 55 barrel he used to burn trash.

Not 10 minutes later the largest King Snake I have seen comes along hunting that copperhead. Follows the exact path to the spot grandad lopped the head off. Raises up a couple feet and sniffs the air in every direction trying to locate the copperhead. He circles the area stopping and raising up sniffing 3, 4 times. Backtracks some, raises up again then slides off into the nearby woods. That thing looked to be 7' long. We let him be, anything hunting copperheads is a good thing!

#3
As a mid teen went fishing the Sabine River Bottoms with the grandad above. He had keys to all the gates and permission from all the old landowners to hunt/fish anytime. Anyway, we were back a couple miles from nearest paved road, Spring floods had receded leaving that tall dying water grass behind. We're walking along the old logging roads about half full of the flood waters still, the deeper ruts anyway. Grandad spots a couple of cottonmouth and we hit the next trail over about 10 yards nearer the Old River to go around them. About a minute later I notice a rusting sound behind and to the right of us. Another minute and I mention it grandad as it's still following us (he was deaf couldn't hear it).

We keep heading to one of his honey holes just a bit ahead and I finally spot it in a thin area of the grass. Medium sized Cottonmouth! He was following to the side catching the grasshoppers we stirred up that were leaping away from us. Luckily the honey hole was on the elevated side of a bend in the river so the land there was bare sand, the snake stayed in the weeds.

#4
Was canoeing the Buffalo River in AR with buddies in the mid 90's. Water was down just a wee little bit, enough so we had to choose sometimes whether stick to main river or take the side areas around downed trees or those little waterfall rapids areas. Well, one time we went left around some trees on the far side of a little island only to find another tree down at the far end of that off channel.

Yep, canoe stuck so I jumped out to yank us over the snag. I was the wrong one to do it as I was in the front and due to beers had forgotten the far side is where the current washes making it deeper than the rear seat side which would be shallow. So I jump in thinking knee deep only to keep going down barely able to snatch a quick deep breath before going under.

As my eyes cross the air/water boundary all I can see under the water is snakes EVERYWHERE, just a writhing mass of sub surface snakes. Luckily I grabbed the nose of the canoe when I reached up as I literally shot straight up out of the water. I must have pushed off bottom without realizing as I was standing in the canoe with no effort to climb a side! Buddy never saw any snakes at all and was like, "Wat?"