Snake safety while detecting

It is the time of the year with the heat,,the reptiles become more active.

Rattlesnakes

In my area we have timber rattlesnakes.
I have lived in the south,,where the substantially bigger eastern diamond lives.

While detecting,,,recommend if in a snake prone area--no headphones,,or maybe back phones.

Some tips here based solely on my encounters over the years.

First rattle snakes do rattle,,this when their tails are barely moving,,,but when a rattle snake is in full alert status,,noise provided more of a buzzing sound.

So it helps to know what they actually sound like.

What to do if you even think you here a rattlesanke.

First STOP, look around quickly,,hold your position for a brief moment.

You likely by the direction of the actual sound,,will NOT be able to accurately tell exactly where the snake is.

Best here to keep your original position and back straight back just like you entered.

This direction of sound,,,we as humans and even rodents can't exactly determine,,,and this what Mother Nature has given here,,,is what a rattle snake uses to catch their quarry.

Now where are you likely to find rattlesnakes??

It depends,,,are they traveling or are the on a stake out mission for grub.

If on a stake out mission for grub,,,rattlers likely will be found in a relatively clean place,,,,with few weeds,,tree limbs.

You may ask yourself why here.

Because remember rattle snakes must strike and bite their quarry,,,and they can't do this with a bunch of obstructions.

As far as traveling,,,they don't like real hot in the middle of the day for traveling usually,,,mid morning later in the afternoon is when you will see moslty.

When traveling though they can be found anywhere.

Old houses, and barns can be places for them to be--- these are usually target rich for rodents.
But they don't like these particular places as well as the other poisonous snake the copperhead.

One other note here,,,if you encounter a rattle snake,,,don't run clumsily away,,,remember there could be some others nearby,,even very close by.

Around here,,there have been cases of this,,,by gen seng diggers,,,trying to dodge one and run into another.

Hunting in remote sites alone,,,consider taking cell phone,,snake bite kit,,best o ale a buddy along if possible.

If bitten,,don't panic,,don't run.

Get a grip,,evaluate the situation.

Remember your very own pulse rate can aggravate the problem with the snake's venom effects on the body.

Always try and wear a belt if you can,,,you might need.

All snake bites,,are not lethal,,some are even dry bites- no venom.
You will know almost instantly if it is a venomous bite though,,,swelling,and pain.

I have had my close encounters with rattle snakes,,never bitten but close a few times.

Be safe and happy detecting.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2016 02:12AM by tnsharpshooter.

I've never encountered a rattlesnake while detecting, but, encountered quite a few while out shooting guns in the wilderness when I was young. The small ones are usually the most aggressive. Out of six or eight close encounters, I was only buzzed by a small one. Another small one, a Mojave green, went out of its way to come after me. One shot from a .22 usually causes them to ball up. Shooting again after the snake is balled up will cause multiple entry and exit wounds from each shot.

Bayard Wrote:
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> I've never encountered a rattlesnake while
> detecting, but, encountered quite a few while out
> shooting guns in the wilderness when I was young.
> The small ones are usually the most aggressive.
> Out of six or eight close encounters, I was only
> buzzed by a small one. Another small one, a
> Mojave green, went out of its way to come after
> me. One shot from a .22 usually causes them to
> ball up. Shooting again after the snake is balled
> up will cause multiple entry and exit wounds from
> each shot.

Sounds like you are a crack shot.

I prefer .38 caliber shot loads in the .357 I carry.

Crosby Wrote:
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> I prefer .38 caliber shot loads in the .357 I
> carry.


I would prefer a taurus judge or S&W Governor to deal with snakes.

_________________________________

Nox600, CTX, CZ21, Excal II and White's DF with 920i stealthscoop...I live and hunt at the beach in Wilm NC

I carry a .40 Israeli Arms "Mini-Eagle."

Shot shells do the trick. Great thing about detecting is you have a "snake prod" in hand when you come up on one.

I stopped hunting till late summer they are still out there till about Nov but yeah they are nasty

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

[www.youtube.com]

If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

I was bitten by a diamondback a few years ago. Wasn't hunting or detecting. I was doing yard work and reached down to pull some weeds. It was in the weeds and bit me on the right hand. Didn't rattle! I Spent three days in ICU. I didn't lose any part of my hand, thankfully, but it took me a couple of years to fully recover the feeling in my hand. Not something I would care to repeat.

When I encounter a rattler out detecting or hunting I just give them a wide berth and move on. I have never encountered that same snake again so I don't feel the need to kill them. Plus messing around with them, trying to kill them, probably results in more bites than anything. What really pisses me off is people killing non-venomous snakes just because it's a snake or the person is just uneducated about snakes and thought it was venomous.

Lots of guys use the snake chaps here in AZ.. I don't feel the need as I wear a mid length boot so I'm not so concerned about getting bit on the ankle as I am about getting hit on the hand, arm, or thigh while kneeling down recovering a target. Snake chaps won't help you there so you must check the area before you kneel down. Most of the easy to get to gold/targets is gone. Now to find gold (and relics) you have to stick your coil where no one else has...under and in to brush, between boulders, etc. So one has to be very aware of what else is lurking in the brush before you kneel down and reach in. TNSS gave some great precautionary tips. IMO the most important one is to be aware of your surroundings. HH.

Dean

Only rattler I ever encountered was a 4 ft timber. I was walking a trail while pres-season scouting for deer. Looking ahead, I spotted an off color circular pattern in the leaves. Sorta like a grey cow patty in the brown leaves. I had stopped in my tracks because a couple of yellow jackets had zoomed past me in a downward trajectory and I didn't want to step in their nest. So, scanning for where the yellow jackets were going to ground, I spied the snake laying next to the trail. I am convinced he was intercepting yellow jackets and that is why he was where he was. I cut down a sapling and hit him over the head with it a few times and killed him. We ate him and his dried skin with 4 rattles hung on my wall for years until it finally disintegrated.
These days, I'd let even the poisonous ones live unless I thought they posed an imminent threat. I enjoy seeing snakes and keep an eye out for them at all times. They are a beautiful and interesting creature that just wants to be left alone. As many as there are in the woods and fields I/we detect, it is rare to to see one.

Wayne

Pleasant Garden, NC
AT Max, Nokta Impact, MX Sport, Nokta FORS Relic, GPX 4800, Infinium, Racer, Deus, F75SE, Nautilus DMC II (order of acquisition, last to first)

Does an archeologist argue with a plow? A bureaucrat with a bulldozer?

Good post tnsharpshooter, fortunately we do not have any poisonous snakes up here. Come to think of it I hardly ever see any grass snakes anymore.

Snake leggings= up to knee protection.
Snake Chaps= up to crotch protection.
In AZ, at my place near Gold Basin, I have seen Several coontails perched in bushes about knee high--hence I went from Leggings to Chaps.

Wild pigs in particular have thick hides that are tough to penetrate, which is why many hunters need large caliber bullets to successfully hunt them. The hide of a wild pig is about as thick as armor around their vital organs. A domestic pig could also be a ferocious opponent against a snake, depending on the size and weight of the animal. Where I live there is a man in Fort Meade, Florida who trains pigs to sniff out snakes and kill them. If you had one of these pigs for a pet, your snake problem would be gone.

For those of you who have watched the movie, lonesome Dove, remember Robert Duvall at the start of the movie had two pigs eating a snake and was with them thru the whole movie...

Snake chaps and be careful where ya put ya hands.

------------"Cz's still bad to the bone".------------
Living on a big ass Astroid.
The woman that got my rib,I want it back.

Oh yea I have chronic lymes so dous yourself in deet,life long pain ain't worth chimp'in out on deet.

------------"Cz's still bad to the bone".------------
Living on a big ass Astroid.
The woman that got my rib,I want it back.

I have a total dislike for mosquitos ... all mosquitos will get swatted if I have a chance. I also crossed wasps and hornets off my list of buddies and they, too, will meet their demise should I have the chance. There are many critters that I just don't care for, but none do I dislike as much as snakes. Any kind of snake, I don't care. I won't touch a snake, dead or alive, and I don't care about any of the wonderful stories folks might share about how they feel about "good" snakes ... to me there isn't such a thing. I hate sakes. Always have and always will.

First rattlesnake encounter was when I was about 5 or 6 years old. My older brother and I were walking up a hillside from where we and our dad were camped on a fishing trip. There's more to the story, but the shortened conclusion is that the rattler chased me down the hill all the way to the roadway. The last rattlesnake I saw was April 28th of this year when Oregon Gregg & I were detecting a gold mining ghost town and the rattler bit my dog, Rikki, in her face. That snake died shortly after we found it and Gregg shot it. Since that day Gregg has killed three more on detecting trips to different areas, the last being just a few short miles away from Rikki's attacker, and one in Utah and one in Idaho.

I have encountered rattlers and other snakes through the decades while doing yard work, fishing, hunting and detecting. The worst year was on May 4th of 1969 on the way to my all-time favorite ghost town where I was driving over already squished snakes as well as slithering kinds making their way across the dirt road in droves. The biggest one my brother warned me to "look out for the limb" he thought he saw ahead.

Limb, I asked? Looking side-to-side there was nothing but dirt, rocks, high desert grasses and sagebrush ... no trees of any kind. That one covered a good portion of the roadway and stretched well over 6 feet in length. Later, on the way home on a hot early afternoon, I stopped to make a quick climb up to retrieve a few traps I had set a few days before. Emptied my revolver going up and had to use four of the six rounds making my way down in that same snaky area we traveled that morning.

I carry a .38/.357 snake shot in all chambers of the cylinder, or sometimes the latter two have .38 Spl. wadcutter loads, when I am out detecting any potential snake environment, and I don't try to decide if they are a 'friendly' or 'foe' snake, they are already an evil snake and I don't like them, any of them. One shot usually takes care of them.

I have found snake encounters to be somewhat cyclic and have enjoyed detecting likely areas for years and never encountered any snake at all, but some years, like 1969 and 2016 seem to be on the very snake-active list. There were a few such years in-between, but '90, '92 and '01 were the last three that kept me more alert and cautious when hunting my favorite old ghost town sites, and ran me lower on snake shot loads. Be prepared is my only warning.

Monte

A cotton mouth and Mohave Green are the only 2 snakes that I will wantonly kill. Both will attack unprovoked. The others help to control rats and mice which can carry vectors of deadly diseases.

[www.dankowskidetectors.com]

When I do this I wear Snake boots up to my Knees...


In the day i'm not as bad off as I can see around me unless it gets thick then the snake boots come back..Ive spent thousands and thousands of hours in the Deep south woods...I've seen them a good bit believe me...but only been struck by copper heads....they are sneaky..

Keith

“I don't care that they stole my idea . . I care that they don't have any of their own”
-Nikola Tesla

Something to be mindful of here.

When we are in cleaner spots a detecting,,,we tend to let our guard down maybe-- not looking at close or feel as threatened.

Snakes like copperheads,,and even rattlers,,,are or can be quiet,,,,you can be very close to one,,and not even realize.

Also,,I have found birds and even squirrels to give warnings of poisonous snakes.

A little story,, my grandmother,,had some chickens back in time,,with a chicken house.

She woul d watch her chickens,,,and by their actions,,she could tell when something was wrong.

One summer she noticed her chickens seemingly moreso extending their necks,,taking on a more alert status,,,2 weeks later she discovered a big rattler under an apple tree close to the chicken coup.

I saw some red birds stirred up one morning Labor Day 78 a squirrel hunting,,,then I noticed what I thought was a rattler,,,shot with a shotgun,,turned out to be 2 copperheads,,,and shot them both in half with one shotgun blast from a 16 gauge.

If you are in a poisonous snake prone area,,,pay attention to your surroundings,,any other wildlife acting mysterious,,,give extra attention.

Birds, squirrels, etc,,,are not dumb animals when it comes to snakes.

Can be your eyes and ears.

There is language spoke in the fields and woods,,,just like a detector speaks language.

Does take some time and experience to learn this language though.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2016 06:06PM by tnsharpshooter.

I go along with Dean's comments and would add:
Always be aware of your surroundings as many snakes are two legged.
Also, don't mess with a dead rattler or other venomous snake as some have foolishly snagged a fang and been thus envenomed.

Past(or)Tom
Using a Legend, a Deus 2, an Equinox 800, a Tarsacci MDT 8000, & a few others...
with my beloved, fading Corgi, Sadie

Good stories.
Chickens will tell you a lot if you watch them. They run and hide when there is a hawk above. They are very good watch dogs/chickens especially those Guinea hens, very noisy. Squirrels give warning sounds too. Amazing Tnss, what one will notice with some observation.

ozzie Wrote:
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> Good stories.
> Chickens will tell you a lot if you watch them.
> They run and hide when there is a hawk above. They
> are very good watch dogs/chickens especially those
> Guinea hens, very noisy. Squirrels give warning
> sounds too. Amazing Tnss, what one will notice
> with some observation.


There is an old saying that I have heard (even ever since I was a kid)---goes like this----"when a farmer has a bullsnake in his barn, he will never have a rattlesnake around".

I went to turn on my hose yesterday and about jumped out of my skin when a black snake jumped away from its resting place right under my hand. I let the black snakes live because they take care of small critters and lizards but man do snakes scare me. Ive seen a real rattle snake one time and it didn't bother me or my hiking group. I have a buddy who works in the ER and he has people coming in all the time with copperhead/rattle bites. He said sometimes the venom does nothing to them and they can leave after a few hours on no meds and other times they need to be admitted for days of treatment...the poison affects us all very differently depending on a number of variables. We get tons of black widow and brown recluse bites around me too. I hate all that stuff.

_________________________________

Nox600, CTX, CZ21, Excal II and White's DF with 920i stealthscoop...I live and hunt at the beach in Wilm NC



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/27/2016 01:43PM by adamBomb.