Glad I don't live where they do!!!

Does it end with a shotgun blast?

It would if I was around them bastards.

The ONLY Solution. Preferably a 12 ga.

I have some bad news for you....I can show you a ton of cottonmouths in Georgia....

no kiddin...where dont they live in Ga. Just have some water close by.

Nasty things, killed many while frog gigging.

I didn't watch until the end but came in the Ga DNR monthly e-mail so I doubt it.

https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/GADNR/bulletins/2f2060c?reqfrom=share



Pretty neat "Entangled Buck" link at bottom

Not north of the airport!

The trick is to wait until they get their heads entangled just sooo... and pull the trigger. That's a two 'fer one shot!

I grew up around rattlesnakes here which most of the time are pretty docile and just want to be let alone. We have very few cottonmouths this far west but I’d always heard how bad they were and attributed it to people exaggerating like they do about most any snake.

And then I moved to SE Oklahoma for a couple years and got better acquainted with the cottonmouth. And yeah, Fugg those things, most aggressive snakes I’ve ever seen. Way worse than your run of the mill rattler.

I've seen them on the Broad River above Athens.

Havin democrat sex. Kill it.

I agree, I've been struck by a rattler but I literally had to step on him. All others, really didnt care I was there, take that back, we had a small one once that charged us, he was maybe 2 ft long. Copperheads will stand their ground pretty good too. They can be pretty fiesty. We've had moccasins swim out to the boat and back just trying to make us leave. But when you walk up on one they just coil up and show that white mouth.

I think a lot of times people mistake a northern water snake for them. They are more aggressive than a cotton mouth in my experience. I cant stand those things. I had one try to climb into a kayak with me once.

Brokeback swamp.

Those Northern water snakes are big brown nasty bastards.

Like you say, aggressive too. I had one get in a fish trap once when I was trying to catch perch for Flathead bait. He was dead when I got the trap up but I still had a hell of a time getting balls enough to get him out.

You have any cottonmouths down there?

We do a lot of wading in he spring and alway keep a look out . They do swim at you with their heads up , thats a cotton mouth .

Florida and Georgia have a lot of them! They are mean, aggressive, and they definitely will stand their ground!

Down east N.C. has a pile of em. I’m plenty cautious when I’m down there.

Oh yeah... Wappapello Lake has some B&C cottonmouths.

Not nearly as many snakes around here as there used to be. Too many alligators and hogs.

Hogs will do a number on them.

Like others have already said, a moccasin (cottonmouth) is the most ornery and "bitey" snake around here. All outdoorsmen hate them. The Copperhead will stand his ground at times. The big watersnakes are a hoot, only because they are huge and so often not afraid of people. They'll scare the crap out of you when you think they are a big moccasin.

Local guy killed this moccasin the other day and put the pics on FB. He's a deputy and a trapper, so he runs the roads a lot. Says it's the largest he's ever come across. I've never found one that big.



I nearly bumped into this guy a few seasons ago when I was scouting buck sign on a warm fall afternoon. He was angry and chest-high. He's no longer with us either.

In my youth, I worked on a surveying crew during the summers. You could smell a cotton mouth when you got in the area with one. We carried "ditch bank blades" so dispatching one was not a problem. Always stepped on the logs and took a big step off when in the woods to avoid a strike.

Yuck

Just another snake.

Another reason I have lived in Alaska for 57 years and plan to die here. No snakes! I think that's the snake I watched swallow a rattle snake on You Tube. So I guess they are good for something.........

We were visiting family down at Bull Shoals Lake in Arkansas last summer.

Wife got nailed by a Copperhead.

It was not a good experience to say the least. Damned near lost her leg.

The only good copperhead/cottonmouth/rattler is a dead one.

I hate it when you're fishing and they are in the willow trees.

I'm NW of them

In some areas where I live they are thick, in other areas not one to be seen. When you see one, it tends to be the principal snake in that area with few other species present. They'll eat anything: other snakes including rattlers, squirrels (if they're big enough), even road kill. They're thick in a swamp near my house and I go out every spring to seem them and get pictures. I've nearly stepped on them, and even accidentally squatted over one and never even had one strike at me. (Copperheads, on the other had, are always pissy.) I used to wear snake boots and don't even bother anymore. Here's some from near my house:



This one is big enough to take a squirrel.








And when you find them in the spring, they are sometimes in groups of 2 to 10.

LMAO when people here say they saw a cottonmouth in the river or at the lake.
There aren't any within 250-300 miles from here.

There's a business park not terribly far from me that had a drainage canal in it that had a small population of Cottonmouths. They never bothered anyone, even when gardens and flower beds were put near it. Business people would go out on the lawn to have their lunch and would see a cottonmouth and complain. The park owner started killing every snake they found. To this day, that drainage ditch is a mess and you can't walk near it without having your foot fall through to a damned muskrat tunnel, and all the trees have been chewed on and have wire around them.

Back in my traveling salesman days i went into Oconee Bait and tackle in Dublin, GA and they had about 20-30 .410 snakecharmers lined up on top of one of the glass pistol cases.

I asked the guy what was the deal with so many of them..he laughed and said they'd be gone in a week every fisherman and local has one handy when fishing the Oconee river cause the Cottonmouths where thick around there!!!

Reminded myself not to go fishing in Central or South Georgia....


Mike

Just keep em down on the SE end of the state please,. We've plenty of copperheads to deal with at this end.

Meanest damn snakes on the planet. We've got'em everywhere around here along with canebrakes and coppertops .... but the cottonmouths are, by far, the most aggressive, meanest, snakes of the bunch.

Darn tootin.!

Copperheads from the airport to north of Kennesaw Mtn/Dawsonville more or less then you might find some rattlers along with copperheads. I hate them all.

Cottonmouths have that some look in their eyes that Black Mambas do. Saw one of those in Zambia. Gave him the right barrel from my .450/400. The locals were grateful.

That would be a very rude encounter. Now, he's a "good" snake.

I bet there's a bunch of doobie ninja cheeto lips and cottonmouths at slums place on Saturday night. That and leftover cold hot dog and fish sammiches the next morning.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

It should have.................nasty ass disposition M'f'ers.

I hate 'em, rattlers & copperheads too.

Kill 'em all, let god sort 'em out.

MM

I just about stepped on this one at my camp a few weeks ago.

Paul, that’s what they make pistols for.

Shot one earlier this week with a 10mm auto using HP rounds and the lucky sucker used up $5 of ammo to get killed. The other one came by when I just had my .22mag NAA pocket pistol and a CCI shotshell ruined his day. The shotshells are the ticket, in my opinion.

A lot of eastern Arkansas has Cottonmouths, Copperheads, and Timber Rattlers. I have some limited experience with all 3.

I wouldn't consider any of them aggressive, generally speaking.
Copperheads are excitable to the point that they'll strike at a foot if you step close enough, or put your hand where you haven't looked.
Wouldn't wanna corner a Cottonmouth or Timber Rattler that I didn't know was there. Or poke sticks at them if I didn't have a plan to kill them when
they get all ugly.
They'll all get away if they have the chance. I think they know their place in the food chain.

Agreed!

Several years back I was deer hunting in palmettos in Tensas Parish. The palmettos were solid thick from 4-6 feet tall except in the sloughs.

It was late December, I made a morning hunt and got down mid day to go scout. You have to walk thru the Palmettos not around them they was so thick, no trails. I was coming up on a slough and something shiny caught my eye ahead of me were the palmettos were shorter next to the water.

I thought no way, sure enough, a cottonmouth coiled up about 4 ft off the ground on a palmetto, sunning I suppose. I doubt it would have done anything if disturbed, but I said f this. Straight to the truck.

The first part of April, 1979, the 12 day patrol, swamps of Eglin AFB, Ranger School. I had a messed up leg had already passed my patrols, ranger buddy and I were switching off on point! He was fine until the moon came out and saw all the moccasins swimming about in the moonlight! I relieved my ranger buddy and cut myself a six foot branch to move snakes away! I've never seen so many snakes in my life! It was scary and way cool at the same time!

I dunno how long that one is, but Ive got an honest five footer hanging in my office from Ga. and I got a 5.5 footer in Louisiana one night.

1965 or so, my mother killed one in her hen house that was just shy of 5' with no head.

Aint' no cottonmouth the equal of a mother with a shovel...

And the value of dogs sleeping on or under the porch is that you won't be surprised when you first come out in the morning. By much of anything...

The only time I have ever seen a “ball” of snakes was on Togo (Tow’go) Island below Vicksburg MS, it was our deer camp and we had a work day. Interior road had been washed out and I leaned over to see how deep, when I had shot every shell I had we counted 37. We have several varieties of color down here, one then was a pale blue absolutely beautiful. I’ve sat on them, pulled one from a creek hand grabbing for fish both by accident of course. Wish I had a nickel for everyone I’ve killed.
The biggest one was working on tree stands back in the 70’s, Will Primos was a member of our camp and we were paired up. It was just at 6’ and thick, I swung at him with a 2x4 we had for replacing ladder steps 3 or 4 foot long. He knocked the board out of my hands as he struck when I swung, we hung him on the skinning rack so the others had to pass him coming back to camp. Caught many with a cane pole and a minnow around ponds to. They’re pretty territorial at times.
I’ve only ever seen 1 rattlesnake, he was swimming at night in the slough we were running trot lines in, we let him be and just watched.

Growing up and hunting in south Florida, I've seen my share of them. These nasty devils would often be waist or chest high on top of rotted or cut cypress stumps. We could drive our swamp buggies on mud trails and see them laying there. They wouldn't even attempt to move. In fact, they would lay right there and dare you to come close-cotton mouth wide open. We would pin them with the buggy tire, jump off and cut their head of with a machete.

Those who underestimate a water moccasin will suffer and learn the hard way. They are evil, mean, and tough! I've seen them on logs as thick and as big around as my arm! I was extremely lucky numerous times walking the deep swamps of the Everglades. God had to be watching over me.

Only time I ever remember being instant cold sweat scared was because of a cottonmouth. As a kid I was fishing in Oklahoma and got my spinner caught some weeds. Yanked on it and if flew into a bush next to me. Reached in to get it and this damn snake as big around as my arm opened up his mouth gave me a flash of white.

I jumped back and it slid in the water, head up. It then turned and glared at me. I booked out of there like a scalded cat.

Almost stepped on a rattler while wearing sandals once and it wasn't as scary as that moccasin.

I'm surrounded by cottonmouths. They cross the fields surrounding my house and often end up in my yard or around/inside my shops. I let all other snakes crawl away, but not cottonmouths or copperheads.

Had a cottonmouth come after me at three different spots as I tried to fish a pond. Last time it swam along as I walked the bank. Gave up and killed it.

Remember several times them swimming up and scattering us kids catfishing by lantern light on the river.

They're the yellow jackets of the snake world.

Nice of him to smile at the camera though

Had one about that size right between my feet when crossing a small creek on a big brush pile. I was standing in the middle of the brush pile, shifting my weight up and down to feel how dense the pile was, when all of a sudden, the moccasin exploded, flailing rapidly in a desperate attempt to get down into the brush pile. I wondered if I wasn’t pinning its head down as I bounced up and down on the pile. Couldn’t believe I wasn’t bit. Just about jumped out of my skin. I can tell you I now have snake boots and won’t be in the woods without them in the future. Then I almost stepped on one of its babies as I climbed the creek bank to get out of there.

Mackay, I grew up in Mtn. Home, Arkansas, between Bull Shoals Lake and Norfork Lake. Lot of water around there including rivers, creeks, and cattle ponds. When I was a kid, had a couple of very near misses with copperheads and another with a cottonmouth moccasin. A buddy was bitten on the ankle by a copperhead and as with your wife, he nearly lost his leg.

Sorry about your wife and hope she has recovered now. I agree with your assessment of poisonous snakes.

L.W.

Bottom picture looks more like a baby copperhead.

Looks like a mating ritual. Or as Tide_Change said, Brokeback Swamp.

Brother killed one that size near Sewell Creek around Marietta/Roswell in the 80’s.

He skinned it out tanned the hide on a board. Hell, he might still have it. It was a big fugker!

That’s what I thought too, until a guy with a lot more experience with vipers corrected me. Baby cotton mouths also have the yellow tip on the tail and can appear orange in color.. Two other things about the picture confirm the fact that its a baby cottonmouth. 1. The patterns are ‘pixilated’. A baby copper head has much smoother lines on the patterns that are shaped like a Hershey’s kiss. 2. The stripe coming off the eye running back is a definite cotton mouth trait.

https://www.pilotonline.com/life/wildlife-nature/article_b5c307e0-4440-11e6-ae34-cf9f0204f3eb.html

10/4. Thanks for the lesson!!!

As I read this, I have a better appreciation of shoveling snow!


Done some logging where Rattlers were thick. Every move was
planned. Every step. Every engine examined before checking the oil.
Sucks on the job.
Sure as hell ain't no way to live.

Where are you, up in Missouri?

I was just in Bull Shoals back in June ... water is so low in that lake, the entire area is depressed, people moving out and leaving property everywhere to go wild ... snakes are on edge. We saw a few here and there along the shoreline. It was enough that I didn't allow the grandkids in the water.

We've had record setting rainfall this year here in SC ... I've never seen so many snakes, especially cottonmouths and canebrakes,. But I had one that could have got me and he didn't so I put him in a bucket and took him back through the woods to the chicken houses. I've had'em cut me slack in swamps, walking through the woods .... but when they get up close to the house and put the dogs in danger and the grandkids ... they gotta go then if they don’t slither off first time I give them the wack.

Mid 80's, In College Park, a suburb of Atlanta, my dad killed one at he edge of my uncles lawn. Big bastard that measured 54".

25 or so years ago, I got invited to help brush a duck blind on the middle fork of the obion River in West TN. It was a great duck place and a weekend of work meant at least one or two weekends of hunting for the upcoming season. I was broke, and this relationship made sense.

So, here I go, off to the river Bank with a machete and pretty soon we've got a trailer load of cane cut. All of a sudden we run into a cottonmouth nest. Snakes every where. I run back to my 4 wheeler to grab my 20 GA. Other guy with me grabs two boxes of bird shot. I fired every one of those shells killing snakes and baby snakes. It took long enough every one else has congregated on the bank to watch. I told em I'd cut all the cane for that day. They could have the rest of it. Seems no one else was interested in the job.

me and my buddies used to run around the swamps in northern louisiana without thinking about it. that was until we saw one about 5 foot long swimming right through the hole we were just in a couple minutes before. kind of took the fun out of it. up here in PA we there are places that i like to go that are thick with rattlers. i only go there from end of november to about march.