Snake alert!

For all of you that are detecting in the South please watch out for snakes as they are out early due to the warm weather. My brother and I was nearly nailed by a Cottonmouth on Saturday while relic hunting. While we did have on snake boots my wife gently persuaded me to order a set of snake chaps yesterday.

The water snakes in SC are the worst... very aggressive should you get near them.

But my #1 fear are yellow jackets followed closely by the growing population of fire ants.

Yes, I have seldom seen an aggressive rattler but have been chased off of a pond before by bad tempered Moccasins. (The late Lewis Grizzard once said that there is only one kind of snake, the dreaded "Copperheaded Water Rattler"! I have a tendency to agree with him.)

and that's why I live in Maine, no poisonous snakes, I just fear snowmen and snow balls, but those yellow jackets are all over, they are the killer, I get attacked at lease once a year and swell up and it hurts, you guys take care down there, I've detected once in Virgina on vacation, and got bit by a jigger, makes our mosquito and black flies look tame, but we are loaded with tics up here," welcome spring"

I have also been chased off of two different relic hunts in October by mosquitoes (twin engine jobs if I was not mistaken). For some reason they are much more aggressive here in the Fall than in the Spring. (or are they a different variety?)

The worst case of chigger bites (red bugs to us Southerners) that I ever had was from a relic hunt back in the late 70's. Metal detecting is not for the faint of heart or those with allergies.

Having been a reptile breeder in a former life I have had as many as 56 snakes in my home at one time, nothing venomous but ranging in size from garter snakes to reticulated pythons.
In a controlled environment I have absolutely no fear of any of them. In the wild however I am in agreement with groundscanner and Mr. Grizzard (one of my favorite writers/comedians); they are ALL copper headed water rattlers until positively identified from a "safe distance". I can tell you from personal experience that "safe distance" is a very loosely defined term and standing between me and a "safe distance" can be more harmful to your health than a direct confrontation with the aforementioned critter.

As weird as it might sound with me not really being afraid of snakes, I am one of the world's worst Arachnophobics and digging around in the leaves and underbrush will often bring you into close proximity with spiders. Although I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that almost all of the spiders in my area are harmless, they WILL cause me to harm myself trying to get one of them or their web off me. The Black Widow and Brown Recluse are a different story though and warrant extreme caution, especially the latter.

Here in East TN., we are fortunate enough to have it all; chiggers, mosquitoes, ticks, snakes, spiders, yellow jackets and my personal favorite bumble bees which I found out DO in fact build nests in the ground and WILL chase you when you run away after disturbing them. I'm not sure if it was a fluke or not but a few of the bumble bees managed to get under my sweaty shirt causing me to remove it while moving at a dead run. When I dropped the shirt the majority of the bees stayed with it and as far as I know they still have it. I went back after dark to retrieve my gear but did not take the time to find the shirt. I've got a strong suspicion that they stayed with the shirt because of the sweaty smell but this is not an experiment that I am willing to re-create any time soon.

This may be common sense to most of you but I think it is worth posting. If you do get bitten by a snake or spider, the worst thing you can do is panic and/or run. The higher your heart rate, the faster the venom will spread through your system. Most bites occur on the leg(s) or arm(s). Keep the limb below your heart and stay calm. The application of tourniquet and the practice of incising the wound and sucking out the poison are sometimes debated so I won't comment on them but the information is all over the web so just google it or better yet, ask your doctor.

Good Luck and HH!

"When I dropped the shirt the majority of the bees stayed with it and as far as I know they still have it." My imagination needs to be curbed. In my minds eye, I see these bee's in the hive............with the shirt hanging on the wall, enjoying cold brews and talking smack about the human, who's a** they just kicked.

xxxx

Wiser to carry a .357 w/snake shot. The only good snake is a dead snake IMO. Sorry animal lovers out there. I just bought snake shot rounds for my .45..... not sure how they'll work yet.

I have spent the majority of my metal detecting time in the Eastern Sierra mountains and in the Mojave desert usually prospecting. In addition to taking all of the precautions mentioned above, I always hunt with a partner so that we can back each other up. One of the very important things for us is to know exactly which medical facility we will go to should there be an emergency. We know in advance where we will go if we need to and we make it a point to have their phone number in our phones. In a local city park you can call 911 but when you are some place "in the sticks" knowing which way to turn at the highway seems to us to be very important. We don't take our dogs with us during snake season, but if we did we would also know where to take the dog if necessary. Happy hunting you guys. John

I step on a ground nest of yellow jacket a few years ago, within seconds I was naked in the woods, doing a Mexican hat dance on my cloths, was not a pretty sight, I got dress after killing them all and walked out of the woods, by the time I got to my truck, my arm was swollen so bad, I couldn't carry my detector, they get me at lease one a year

I seem to be the target of choice for wasp. I have been nailed by a multitude of wasp on several occasions. Most unpleasant! I must smell bad to them. My poor son is allergic to them and on one occasion temporarily lost his vision after being stung by a carpenter bee.

Yep, Neugene,about pests, we've got all that here plus gnats, horseflies and another bloodsucker we call
"deerflies"--these along with gnats will not leave no matter how much one swats at them.

Only snakes here are the ones in Lansing.

Such a fun hobby, isn't it? It beats collecting buttons. Snakes dont bother me so much, but you are right about those pit vipers. They are extremely aggressive. I am more fearful of gators and spiders. Even if a big spider (they can get up to four or five inches) isn't poisonous, they can take out a very serious chunk of flesh. Believe me, I know....And spiders are super observant, also.

As funny as it sounds, geese are very aggressive now protecting their nests.

Yes...........geese can have a fowl-mouth!

NASA-Tom Wrote:
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> Yes...........geese can have a fowl-mouth!

ha ha ha---That's what I like, a CLEAN fowl-mouth joke!!!------Good one Tom!

Speaking of geese---My wife & I had a gander try to chase us off in the car once when we were driving thru an area.---I think there was about five female geese there & some young ones also.------I remember reading that Napoleon used geese as "guard geese"---the Germans did to in WWII.---------Del

Speaking of geese....the parks in Boise, ID are innundated with these critters. Literally, every square inch of these parks has a canadian goose turd on it. Messy, to say the least. One flew into a powerline yesterday, caused a outage, snarled traffic and a 3 car accident. The enviromentalists keep preventing anyone from doing anything about this. Easily a 1000+ geese. Your dog has to have its poop picked up, but not these critters.

My secondary worry here in Mississippi are feral hogs. They can be very aggressive and can rip your leg (or any other part of your anatomy) wide open with their tusk. I have only seen them once while metal detecting, but they are spreading more and more into my hunting zones.

Fresh too!!!!

I always worry about the skunks here.

schultzie Wrote:
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> Wiser to carry a .357 w/snake shot. The only good
> snake is a dead snake IMO. Sorry animal lovers out
> there. I just bought snake shot rounds for my
> .45..... not sure how they'll work yet.

Great idea, fight them in their own country so we wont have to fight them at home.