COTTONMOUTH problems

[Bc'z]

Sounds like a bucket to sit on, and ice chest of beer, a shotgun and lots of ammo kinda days sitting on the edge of ponds shooting em.

Exactly how we use to catfish.
Ol man took a cooler full of beer and we didnt leave till beer was gone and cooler full of channel cats.

Edit, there an ol wives tale that they wont hit under water. I bet dad still has that jitter bug with fang mark's in it.

 

[Sniper338]

Exactly how we use to catfish.
Ol man took a cooler full of beer and we didnt leave till beer was gone and cooler full of channel cats.

Used to? I still do.

 

[timeout]

View attachment 1085189

I haven't ever encountered a snake that large but the dead ones I've had my hands on wouldn't stand up straight if grabbed mid section. You have shorts on so I assume the snake isn't frozen. Did he swallow a steel fence post? Seeing this picture on my phone so maybe he is hanging from something?

 

[hillbillydruggist]

A drift fence and pit trap may help to clear out some. If you check regularly you could remove the snakes you don't want killed.

could you elaborate on this? i'm interested but not sure if I understand, thanks!

 

[shooter65]

C4

 

[jamesh]

Just google drift fence pitfall trap. There are many articles on them. I have never done it myself but had heard about them. If you don't care if you kill all of them that fall in the trap a couple inches of water in the bottom of the trap and a couple pouches of chewing tobacco will likely take care of them. Snakes can't handle nicotine.

 

[savagedasher]

Looks like man can’t also

 

[Tommie]

I grew up surrounded by venomous snakes in the Ozark Mountains. Copperheads border on docile and will do just about anything to avoid a confrontation. Rattlesnakes are nastier but at least they’ll sometimes give you a warning. Cottonmouths really scare me. Extremely territorial and are truly aggressive.

 

[ppaul]

OK, now you guys got me appreciating that it was -21 degrees here this morning.

 

[savagedasher]

Here in Florida we cannot kill them legally
But we also have a stand your ground law
That my excuse and I’m sticking to it
LOL

 

[CaptainMal]

Hawks.

Maybe just two weeks ago the wife and I watched a large hawk catch, kill, carry and eat a smaller Cottonmouth. Pond behind the house occasionally has one. When I kill them they are most always quiet offensive. They flat out attack. I near always carry a NA Arms 22 mag with CCI snake shot. Works.
Well this day it was different.

The hawk flew down, nailed the snake and had a dickens of a time getting it killed. Binoculars confirmed that rat tail and fatter body. Cottonmouth. After a fight it flew over a fence at the back of my place and under some trees. Pecked it apart and then proceeded to open it up and eat. After a bit it took it away, probably to its' nest.

Get Hawks.

 

[2506]

I used to live in Gaston NC. I would go down in the summer to the boat ramp area under the bridge that crossed the Roanoke river going into Roanoke Rapids. There was a section of calm water that was called the tail race which was an overflow area for the Roanoke Rapids dam. In the hot summer this place was alive with cotton mouths. I would take a Daisy pump up BB/177 pellet rifle that would shoot about as hard as the old 22 long would with the max 10 pumps. I would shoot snakes until I got tired pumping that rifle up. Used to go fishing with and old fellow who was my neighbor in some of the ponds and creeks and rivers in the area. Once down in the Hertford NC area we were brim fishing out of a john boat with cane polls and crickets. My neighbor was an old pro at skulling with a paddle that would just ease the boat around on the water. We were easing down the river and came around a corner and there was a tree that had fallen into the water and there was a gust of wind that caught the boat and was about to blow us into the tree. The boat was a fiberglass boat so I reached out to grab a limb with my left hand and push the boat away so we for sure did not poke a hole in it. As I reached toward that limb there was a cotton mouth laying on it with his head back ready to strike. Quick as lightening I dropped my pole out of my right hand and grabbed the paddle that was laying right by my seat and chopped down on that snakes head chopping it off. The old fellow that was in the back of the boat said "I don't think Marshal Dillon could beat you to the draw." That one was so close I about needed to change my shorts. The old fellow carried an old 410 shotgun in the boat for snakes. We have had them drop out of trees and almost drop in the boat and some of them were HUGE. When they would start to shed their skin I am told they go blind for a while and they really get aggressive. We have had them come toward the boat acting like they were in attack mode. They got a dose of lead shot. Later when I got my own boat I carried a T/C Contender pistol with a 10" 45 Colt/410 shot shell barrel for snake duty. One fellow that moved into the area from up north someplace had a new Bass Tracker boat. He had one of those HUGE cottonmouths drop out of a tree right into his boat and he pulled his 357 mag pistol in a panic and blasted with all six shots and did kill the snake but he also blew 6 pretty good size holes in the bottom of his boat. Just lucky it was in the front of the boat and he quickly fired up the boat and got it up on plane which lifted the front out of the water and ran it to the boat ramp before it could sink.

 

[Tim Singleton]

They will congregate in ponds when hot in summer, walk bank at night a few times when hot and you can really thin them out...I wouldn't worry if you get the water snakes, they will cause you to hurt yourself just the same! Lol you must not have hogs??

Do the hogs eat the cottonmouths?

 

[KMart]

Do the hogs eat the cottonmouths?

A hog will eat anything that doesn't eat him first.

 

[Tommie]

Do the hogs eat the cottonmouths?

Indeed.

 

[troupe]

Hogs love snakes .

 

[hillbillydruggist]

I grew up surrounded by venomous snakes in the Ozark Mountains. Copperheads border on docile and will do just about anything to avoid a confrontation. Rattlesnakes are nastier but at least they’ll sometimes give you a warning. Cottonmouths really scare me. Extremely territorial and are truly aggressive.

you are EXACTLY RIGHT

 

[okie]

Do the hogs eat the cottonmouths?

yep--and almost anything else

 

[rardoin]

I grew up surrounded by venomous snakes in the Ozark Mountains. Copperheads border on docile and will do just about anything to avoid a confrontation. Rattlesnakes are nastier but at least they’ll sometimes give you a warning. Cottonmouths really scare me. Extremely territorial and are truly aggressive.

Interesting. I grew up in the woods in south Louisiana and we had plenty of copperheads in the pines/hardwoods and cottonmouths along the bayous and sloughs. The copperheads were more likely to strike out if I was within a couple of feet and the cottonmouths only if 'molested' or nearly stepped on. Of course we did a lot of cottonmouth molesting. The largest one we killed was 5'8" and found another dead by the hwy at 5'6". I currently live in a moderately sized city a couple of hundred yards off a river. In the past 5 years we had 3 adults and one dog hit by copperheads in the landscaping within 4 houses of mine. Two hits produced short hospitalizations.

 

[holstil]

Both will kill ya

Yeah, but I can see a hog. Lol

I take my kids to the family farm to play. The river wraps around the property. I have a Ruger single six that I put the 22 mag wheel in with bird shot on my hip. I don't care to kill things needlessly, however, when it comes to my kids, I speed up the life cycle for poisonous critters. They become fertilizer or food for other critters.