Snake Stories: Too Close for Comfort Edition

Once when I was about 10 or 11 years old, probably late June, early July, I woke up early on a Sunday morning, and everybody was still asleep and I was bored. I got dressed and went back in the pasture behind the house, I was gonna go down to this little spring back there, where there were usually little turtles at that time of year. There weren't any cows in the pasture at that time, the fences were needing to be fixed, It had been recently mowed.
I'm walking along, and I'm almost to the spring, and I almost step on this black snake, oh crap, I step back real quick, but I notice that there looks like 2 blue stripes down this snake's back. Well this snake kind of stands up like a dang cobra and looks at me, and scares the heck out of me. I took a couple of steps backwards keeping my eye on him, and he just moves with me, that scared me even worse. He's still kind of standing up and looking at me. He's done showed me that he's gonna follow me, and I didn't like the thought of that. I'm lookin at him and he's lookin at me, I say "BOOO" and I rush at him a couple of steps hopin to scare him off, he just kind of goes sideways a little bit, to keep a distance from me and stops, and stands there lookin at me. I do it again and the same thing happens. I'm lookin around out of the corner of 1 eye for a rock, or a stick, or anything I can grab, and throw at him to scare him off, but there aint anything. I take a couple of steps back again, and he follows me, and stops when I do, it was like he was mocking me, and to me that was freaky as hell and scared me even worse. I done run into a crazy arse snake.
I make a snap decision, and start running a beeline as fast as I can back to the house. There was a place where the honeysuckle had pulled down the top 2 strands of barbwire, and that's where I headed, my little short legs churnin like Jesse Owens, I could hear that snake in the grass behind me, and ran even faster. I was thinking, if I can hurdle that fence at that low spot, that thick honeysuckle might slow him down a little bit. I got there and I did a perfect hurdle in stride and into the grass of our backyard and didn't lose a step. I didn't slow down or look back til I was bustin in to the back door at our carport.
My Dad is there in the kitchen drinkin some coffee and he say's "what the hell is wrong with you boy?!" So I start telling him, and he's laughin like hell, and he tells me that it's a black racer and they would act like that, but the blue stripes don't sound right to him, still, I swore that I saw them.
Later on, I figured out that the stripes were just a reflection of the sky on his scales.
That was a crazy thing to happen to a kid, on an early Sunday morning. I'll never forget any of it.

I was collecting mushrooms last week and put my hand on a copperhead. Beautiful snake.

Here's one for the firestarters/explosive experts around here.

I was about 14 and was hunting squirrels in the woods near Lake Fausse Point. I came upon a wet area with Cypress trees and short grass and proceeded to walk through it with my eyes up in the trees. After a while I looked down and got the surprise of my life to see Moccasins everywhere, I mean like every square foot had one coiled up. I looked back the way that I had come and it was the same - how I had not stepped on one was beyond me. I kid you not, there must have benn hundreds of those rascals both big and small.

I backtracked very carefully and got out of there. Not one snake even moved as I stepped within inches of their coiled bodies. God was looking out for me that day.

It was late September, I assume that they were prepping to go into hibernation.

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Pretty certain it was not a moccasin based on the colors.

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I don't know about the rest of the south but Moccasins are rare if not non-existent above I-20 in Georgia. Brown water snakes are eerywhere though....

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?"

When i was just a kid. Probably 11-12, we’d spend many summers and falls at our camp on lake Bistineau.. plenty of land to explore and We’d build many a fort encampments in the woods that we’d use for fun and blinds to shoot at squirrels and birds... one morning I decided to head out and check on my favorite spot overlooking this gulley... I took a seat and was just brushing it up when I look to my left and look back like nothing... but something didn’t seem right so I looked back and I’ll be damned if I wasn’t staring at a copperhead just curled up looking right back at me ... he was maybe 5-6 ft away with his head still but ready to strike.. thankfully I knew that he was unlikely to move towards me if I backed out, so I did with a steady measured pace...

I had one fall in a aluminum boat with me when I was younger,I bumped a low hanging limb and he fell in,I was beating at him with a paddle,he was coming at me and I jumped in the water.He crawls over the back of the boat into the water,I don’t remember getting back in the boat but next thing I know I was in it.
A friend of mine used to carry a .22 in his boat to shoot snakes.A water moccasin fell in his boat and he shot 14 holes in his boat.He cranked his motor real fast and made it to the bank.He had to whittle 14 sticks to plug all the holes and the bale the water out of the boat.
A guy my dad knew shot a snake that fell in his boat with a .410,his boat sank and he had to hang on a cypress tree all night.He got rescued the next day.
I saw a huge congregation of water moccasins at Saline one time.As you come from Youngblood’s Landing on the left there is a bluff.There was 150-200 water moccasins on logs,hanging on limbs,etc.I supposed it was mating season,it made my skin crawl.
When I first started fishing Saline in the 80’s there were more snakes than I’ve ever seeen,lots of those diamond back water snakes.The state started stocking it with alligators and after a few years I would rarely see a snake.

vivid? i'll tell you vivid. i opened my pool strainer in the dark and was reaching in to pull the basket out when i saw something moving.

i bring a flashlight every time now.

Sr. year of highschool. Shooting some hoops with my bro-in-law at their house at about 9:30pm. He shoots a brick and the ball rolls in a gap between the lattice work, under their house. He tells me to go get the ball. For some reason I did. I crawl up under the house feeling around in the dark for the ball. My hand finds a mud puddle. I feel a big thump on my elbow. I thought a frog or something had jumped into my arm. I crawl a little further, find the ball then back out. We went back to shooting ball. After a minute or two my elbow is feeling weird, I look down and see 2 holes with blood trickling out and it swelling like a mofo. He throws me in his trucks and takes me to the ER. By the time I get there my elbow is the size of a football. The ER really wanted to know what kind of snake it was before they did anything. So bro-in-law calls a local "snake catcher" who goes out there, crawls under the house and kills a ~3' cotton mouth. It was laying where their A/C dripped down (the water puddle I felt). He said I had crawled right on top of it. The hospital pumps me full of antibiotics but no anti-venom. Apparently the worst part of a cotton mouth bite is the bacteria the nasty bastards got living in there mouth. I got sick as hell and had one fatass arm for about a week

Lago Vista, TX
- Back in the 80s, I walking down a path towards the golf course, brother holes at me, I stop and turn around hollering at home for about 15 seconds. I hear a noise, look down by my foot and see a rattle rattling. I bolted out of there and saw the snake “hopping” off.

Woods near Kentwood, LA
- Clearing a lane for travel during hunting season. Walking along and in mid stride something catches my eye, I look down and there’s a copperhead directly beneath me. I walked right over him.