Snake Guns

[publius]

The only snake I'll kill is a water maccasin. Rattlers & Copperheads get to live, they don't want to hurt you if you leave them alone. Moccasins tend to be a little more aggressive and live in areas where they are easier to step on or they feel cornered.

 

[stephen426]

My apologies to the snake lovers, but for me, a good snake is a dead snake.

I have shot a few with my .22 pellet rifle. The last one was sitting right on top of my mail box, which has a row of shrubs right behind it. Either my wife or I (or the mail man) could have been bitten if we startled it. I killed another on that was peeking out of my hedges. My wife walked right past it (probably no more than a foot) and didn't even notice it until I warned her.

I just got the Gamo Viper Express which fires lead shot or .22 pellets. I am reasonably impressed by the penetration and am pretty sure it would easily take out a small snake.

I live pretty close to a mangrove "swamp" and I'm sure there are plenty of snakes in there. As long as they stay there and away from my house, I'm fine with that. I don't want my wife, dog, or myself to get bit and have to worry about whether or not the snake was venomous.

 

[scorpion_tyr]

Shooting snakes is fun. My dad uses a .357 magnum. I don't use anything because every time I've gon out looking there are none to be found.

 

[chaplain tom]

Original Post by stantonizm: Those are some of the nicest Prairie Rattlers I've ever seen come from Florida.

You're right. I lived in northeast Florida (Jacksonville) for several years after leaving the navy and those are DEFFINATELY NOT Florida Eastern Diamond Backs. The color is all wrong and the bodies are WAY too small. Eastern diamiond backs are much heavier in the body than those snakes in the picture.

Am I wrong or are Eastern Diamond Backs the largest rattle snake in the country followed closley by the largest strain of timber rattlers/cain break rattlers?

I'm from South Western Illinois just accross the river from St. Louis, MO and there is an area there in Illinois (on the bluffs around Marquette Park) that has a very large contingent of timber rattlers that biologists say are the most venomous timber rattlers in the country. Very similar in venom to the strain found on the western side of the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee. The late Steve Irwin (The Crocodile Hunter) did a show about these two strains of timber rattlers once and he made that statement on the show backedup by wildlife biologists. There's also an area of about 3-4 square miles just north of a very small town called Fosterburg (where I grew up on a farm) about 10 miles or so east of the bluffs that has for reasons no one seems to be able to explain, the very same strain of timber rattlers. When bailing hay in that area, we would have be VERY careful when lifting a bail off the field to put on a wagon or in a pickup truck. The rattlers liked to get out of the sun by coiling up under the hay bails. Sometimes they would just strike without buzzing when you picked up the bail. I used to carry a single shot .410 shot gun on the tractor with bird shot when bailing hay there. The biggest one I ever saw in the hay fields was one a farmer had killed. It measured 56" long and had 14 buttons on the rattle. He had it mounted.

And I am also against just shooting a snake because it's venomous. If it chooses to take up residence near my house or my barns I'll try to relocate it. If it keeps coming back then I have no choice but kill it. I would probably just club it or chop it with a hoe or something, but for the sake of this thread, I do carry a Texas Defender with .410 - 7 1/2 shot or the CCI .45 snake load when I go back to that area and walk in the area on the bluffs where the snakes are known to be. I doubt that I'd shoot one though unless I had no choice.

 

[Fiv3]

I'm very much in the let-the-snake-be camp. That said, when I'm down at my step father's cabin on the lake, I keep a careful eye out for copperheads and cottonmouths. If I'm packing a .38, I keep the first couple of shots snake shot. I certainly don't want to kill them. I'm not looking for a fight. However, next year my daughter will be toddling around with me. I'm not letting her get bit even if it is might fault for stumbling on top of a snake.

Sorry, Mr. Snake. Fair is fair, but things change when you're a daddy.

The good news is that poisonous snakes are pretty rare around here. Mostly just king snakes. The great thing about king snakes is that they eat poisonous snakes AND rodents. win win i suppose

 

[gak]

Fiv3 said:
"Mostly just king snakes. The great thing about king snakes is that they eat poisonous snakes AND rodents. win win i suppose"
----
Keep those Kings around, "best" snake we have. Great rattler killers. Don't know how they fare with mocassins and copperheads, but similar I imagine. Some of the racers and, in Arizona anyway, bull snakes are great too. Saw a red racer beat up a big diamondback and leave it belly up dead, although outsized at least three or four to one.

 

[Casparado]

We use a trap and release method where I live. You can use a long handled grabber, get the snake behind the head, and put it in a carry rig. (5 gal bucket with lid will work fine, or maybe a rubbermaid tub. Where my father worked (historic preserve) there were tons of venemous snakes. When a fellow employee would come across one, they would call him. He would capture it and release it in an appropriate location.

IOW there is no need to kill snakes. They do MUCH MORE good than harm, and are considered "good guys" in my family. I use my "snake shot" on gophers instead!

Also, I always keep a snake bite kit in my first aid kit, which I keep on me at all times when out hiking. Never had to use it, but it's always better to be safe than sorry

 

[Single Six]

I don't go hunting for snakes, and if I encounter them in the wild I just leave them be. HOWEVER, any snake that I can positively identify as poisonous in my yard is not long for this world. I have young children, and that settles it for me. I have used my Crosman pellet rifle to kill many snakes in the yard; one shot to the head is all that's needed. On other occasions I have used my Ruger Single Six [of course!] to good effect. For indoor encounters [it's happened once], I use my Cold Steel sjambok. It works !

 

[stantonizm]

Am I wrong or are Eastern Diamond Backs the largest rattle snake in the country followed closley by the largest strain of timber rattlers/cain break rattlers?

Eastern Diamondbacks are the largest, followed by Western Diamondbacks. After that would be the southern variation of the Timber, the Canebrake. I think the official record for an EDB was a little over 8' but that record is questionable. A place in Florida had a big reward for anyone who could bring one over 7' since the 1970's and no one has found one. With habitat destruction the populations are much more restricted than they used to be and its very uncommon for one over 6' to be found.