Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Black Mamba Question.

I read how deadly these snakes are through the works of Peter Capstick, Boddington and such. Is there a season or time of year these snakes are more visible? Any members have personal experience or tales about these creatures?

We see them often enough, they are lightening fast and will get out of your way in nearly every situation. They like to hide in termite mounds and piles of dry or rotting wood.

during the time of year your likely hunting May through July they are not very active. I've seen them laying in the big dug out holes in the bottom of a termite mound. They can look almost dead laying there, but are just somewhat dormant when it's cold.

During the heat of the day they are sometimes in a warm sunny spot in a road, or even more frequently the branches of a tree. These snakes hunt birds more then anything else so they are often in trees.

I'm not very worried about Mambas as everyone I have seen is hauling a$$ out of town when you see them. Walking in a shoulder to shoulder path is a bad idea. Single file is better. Let the snakes get away, pinned between two people when walking abreast is a more likely issue.

The snake that is a bigger problem and more likely to be seen and give you trouble is the puff adder. They will just let you step on them and then bite you. They are slow and short tempered. The rinkals is another troublesome issue. they are fast as lightening and also seem to have a shorter temper then the mamba from my experience. They rise up and spread the hood, giving you fair warning much of the time. They can move through the branches of a tree as easy as a fish swims through water.

black mambas are pretty much every bit as deadly as you have read.....but as with most snakes 99 times out of 100 they will head the other way and you will prolly never see them cause they can generally feel your foot steps through the ground at a dozen yards, as can most any snake.....corner one and they are pissy, mean and lightning fast....

as JJ said puff adders would concern me more cause they are a sit and wait type critter and not an active hunter like the mambas......they are gonna sit tight and hope their camouflage keeps them hidden rather than try to run, invade their space and they might bite, step one one and they will defiantly bite whatever they can get ahold of........

the time of the year that your generally hunting the southern half of Africa is their winter, and while its nowhere as cold as mine, snake activity defiantly does take a down turn.....aint that yah wont see them cause it is still warm enough for them to be out and about, its just not as likely....

These posts are spot on IME...last time I went to Africa we went to Namibia in April..just so I could find some snakes...
Was not dissapointed....
Ive seen them less and less through the end of May...and Ive only encountered one snake of any kind in the months of June/July/ August....prime hunting season there...
As these guys said, even Mambas will make an effort to get out of your way...given the chance...they DO hunt birds, so those trees you see laden with huge Weaver Bird condos are not a good idea to walk under and poke around...mambas plus boomslangs....
The Puff Adders are an issue, I fiddled with a few on the last trip and have never seen a snake so reliant on their own camoflage...read that to mean they hold perfectly still, are next to impossible to see, and simply hope you go away...till you step on one...
They are one of the most beautiful snakes I have ever seen....

Ingwe

Good reason to be in Yukon..............no snakes

Glad I'm going in July.

Awhhhh...come on....

Snakes are cool.....

And only the venemous ones count.....

Ingwe

Want something that will scare the bejeezus out of you?

Try having a full-grown monitor lizard crawl under your Double Bull blind while bowhunting!

KRAPPP!!...I'll bet!

Savannah Monitors are just plain ugly-azzed....and I screwed up a stalk on Impala in Zim one day when I saw a 4 foot tree monitor go snaking up a tree and uttered a WTF is THAT ! out loud....

Ingwe

Two incidents come to mind...Last year a Mamba struck one of Pierre van Tonders trackers as they drove down the road. He was riding on the bumper and it hit him between the shoulder blades, but didn't penetrate the skin, hung up in his coat and spewed poison all over it..pretty scary, and he was fit to be tied while the camp staff made fun of him! They really thought it was funny...

About 5 or so years ago in Tanzania, I got out of the bakki and ran out and shot a Hartebeest for meat, I heard yelling and looked behind me and a Mamba was reared up and coming at me from about 25 feet and closing fast. PH H.M. shot at him and one of the buck shot hit a tree about an inch from my face, needless to say I took off like a rocket. He killed the snake with another shot..They tell me a man cannot outrun a Mamba but I doubt that, I did. A scared man is pretty swift, and I was about as afraid of the PH as I was the snake to tell the truth..I was not a happy camper that day. The PH only had one good eye, and a deadly fear of snakes, and he was short on experience. A good guy but lacking in judgment at the time. I never booked a hunt for him based on that experience and several other incidents.

In all the years I have hunted Africa that is the only close call I have had with a snake and actually I have seen very few black or green Mambas over the years.

Interesting story Ray, It jarred my memory. I was driving a dirt road trying to spot game and not paying much attention to the road. I hear "big snake" from the back of the truck, my hunter and his wife are yelling. I was about to turn and look back to ask where, when I saw the body going under the truck. I did not bother to hit the brakes and just kept going. I did not want to launch the passengers over the cab!

My window is open and my elbow out the opening of my cruiser. At about the time I realized I had gone over this mamba I heard a bang on the door right below the vent window. When I looked out the window, I saw the body of the mamba falling backwards.

At that moment I realized that I was within about 15-20" of being struck on the elbow while driving inside my cruiser. Mamba's are quite long. A 10-12 footer would be a nice size snake but I'm not sure it would be "huge"

Clearly there is a lot of snake remaining when you're going over the body with the front tire of your cruiser!

a person can outrun a mamba.....the fastest clocked mamba was under 13mph......an olympic sprinter can hit around 22mph.....guessing someone, in decent shape hopped up on adrenalin from the sight of a mamba headed for them could prolly hit somewhere between 15 and 18mph.....however if yah trip your screwed

Hope you don't mind me saying so but some of you blokes need to do a bit of studying up on your snakes.

There are two basic types of mamba, the green which is arboreal (lives in trees) and the black that lives on the ground. although there are a lot of old wives tales (esp) about mambas that should be ignored, mambas are generally considerably more aggressive and much more inclined to stand their ground than pretty much any other snake in Africa.

Puff adders are not an aggressive snake at all and their first line of defence is usually to play dead and about the only time you're liable to get bitten is if you actually step on one or you mess with one by doing something stupid like picking it up.

Admittedly a lot of people get bitten by puff adders but mostly beacause they do dumb things like think they really are dead and pick them up. Their fangs also fold back in their mouths which means less likely hood of a venemous bite. It should be noted that a dry bite is not uncommon with puff adder bites.

Most snakes such as cobras etc will sense your approach and duck out if the have an escape route, a mamba however is much more likely to raise the first half -two thirds of it's body off the ground and look to see what's approaching and only then duck out if it feels the need....... but it'll usually look first.

When you do come across them, the natural instinct is to get the hell out of the way asap..... however, most experts say you should just freeze as they spot movement a lot easier than a still object.... from my experience, that's correct.

It should be noted that mamba venom is neurotoxic and puff adder venom is cytotoxic.

chit man, if yah want to get technical there are 4(5 if yah really like to divide 'em up):

D. angusticeps (eastern green mamba)
D. jamesoni jamesoni (Jameson's green mamba)
D. jamesoni kaimosea (Jameson's black-tail mamba)
D. polylepis polylepis (black mamba)
D. viridis (western green mamba)

Here's a Puff Adder--

Interesting thread.

Rattler,

You're talking lumpers and groupers there but I take your point and should perhaps have added the word basic and will amend my post accordingly.

My point is that there are large behavorial differences between black and green.

push comes to shove, in the bush ill throw all of mambas in one group.....granted your more likely to find the blacks on the ground than the greens its far from a rule.....all of them are pissier than [bleep] when cornered and more than capable of handling themselves in a fight....

snakes dont scare me, even venomous ones.....ill mess with most any viper put in front of me and not worry bout it much, all move pretty well the same and act pretty well the same, with minor variations...be they a prairie rattler from here or a puff adder from there....

elapids, especially African elapids, like cobras and mambas i dont have much interest in screwing with, their locomotion is different, especially mambas, they are greased lightning to put it mildly and i aint willing to [bleep] with them.....they dont scare me so much...more like ive seen them in action in venomous keepers collections here in the states and they get a ton of respect from me....

I was on a crawl to get closer to a springbok and got to about five feet from a greenish brownish snake the size of a garter snake. Now let me assure you my fear of snakes verges on mental illness. I jumped up and shot at it kicking dirt in its face and it left the scene pretty quick. The PH and tracker tried to catch it to show me it was harmless but could not. The springbok were no where to be seen, and there was no lack of laughter by everyone but me zt the incident. My springbok was shot at 270 yds and I did no more crawling.

I am not saying my fear is justified, but you guys who mess with snakes are another kind of nutcase. In my humble snake scared opinion.

Randy

One of the fellas I went to school with in RSA is a Doctor that owns a large concession bordering the park.

We had a lot of conversation about snake bites in School and for the years after I hunted with him on his property.

He had seen a single Mamba bite in about 20 years of practice, but sees 100 Puff adder bites a year. I have seen Mambas exit the area as fast as they can move nearly every time I have seen them. I've never seen a single one come for a person unprovoked. Of Course the definition of "provoked" is determined by the mamba not the person.

I've had puff adders bounce off the toe of my boot several times and they will strike a stick in a heartbeat when teased. They are also out during colder weather far more then the cobra's and Mamba's. Of all the Mamba's I have seen in my life the most were in termite mounds. It has gotten to the point that I will always look into the holes when I walk by them just to see if there is one visible. Two years ago my PH Henk Viljoen shot two in a termite mound hole with a single 375HH bullet. They were curled up together in a ball in that hole.

Outside of the ones in the holes, I have seen equal amounts on the ground and in trees. They are quite frequently in the branches of trees sunning in the winter. I think it gives them some peace and quiet from getting trampled by hoofed game?

Far and away the most common snake you will see in winter is the Rock Python. They must have a lot of fat! I have seen them out in a big coil along the road during very cold mornings. Personally these are the most entertaining and fun snakes I have ever known. They can be huge and are not as fast so they can be approached and photographed by hunters.

They have no venom, but they have a very dangerous bite with the infectious qualities in their gums. They are also beautiful and with amazing power. Even a smaller 2 meter python will put a squeeze on your arms that will really get your attention. once you feel that, you can only imagine what a 200 pound 5 meter python will do to you or whatever it wraps around!