Just got back from checking stuff out down on the creek. Was looking at last two holes of water. And all of a sudden Water Moccasin!!! Left gun in mule. So I commenced to chunking big ass rocks. Busted it good but it managed to crawl in a small hole in the bank!!!

So I trotted my happy ass back to the mule and grab this old Sear Roebuck 20 ga breakopen especially for this purpose. Got back down and was inspecting the bank and holy schidt another hunkered on the bak in the mudand water waiting for a victim. BOOM busted his azz. While taking his pic about 4’ away ANOTHER!!! BOOM! Blowed that bastid clean across the creek. Then I decided to get my ass outta there.

These weren’t common water snakes or broad banded water snakes or diamond back water snakes. These were bone fide mocs!! All I could think of was that poor Irish kid on Lonesome Dove!!!
This was just like in a movie. I wasn’t waiting around for others!!
I’ll try to get a pic up in a minute.

I even checked what was left of this ones head for fangs, and yup! There they was!!!

Sounds like a fun place to throw a sleeping bag down and spend the night.

Not.

They're invading Bob.

Good thing you got a start on them!

Good job. Nasty bastards. Edk

If it's venomous around here, it dies.

Good job!

Good deal Bob. Hate those nasty bastards.
I’ve flat wore out a couple of good fishing poles on a couple that tried to climb in a ole John boat with me at the cousins place in E TX.
Thank God I never seen one in the creek or small tank here on the Ranch.
Got too many rattlesnakes to deal with as it is.

I keep an old cut down Steven’s SXS 12ga, behind the front door for any that come in the yard.
And a 870 for them on the Ranger for in the pasture or fields.

Amen !!!

Those things give me the Heebie Geebies

Good shootin' sir.

More good moccasins! They are #1 on my list of things to whack here in Florida. Killed my last one in the front yard with a shovel.

Good work!

I didn’t stick around to see if I could find anymore. Everyone of these was less than 5 feet from me when I started a chunkin and a shootin!! There another small hole of water another 100 yards up the creek. I bet they are just a bad there. This spot has vertical banks about 8’ high. Cypress and vines overhead like almost triple canopy! One way back out to the creek crossing.

Take a repeater next time!

And a box of shotshells just in case...

I’ll go back down there later and take a pic of that spot!!! I’ll pack my ol’ thumb buster along too!

Way to go KW!

Never sawed one, from what I understand they have a little bit of an attitude.

Nice Rootin' Tootin' and Shootin' KW!

For some reason I just hate snakes.

Way back when I was a kid we used to shoot rattlers off the rocks along the Columbia near Vantage, WA. Killed a ton of them.....

Thanks Paul. All water snakes are ill tempered. Especially after you bust one in the noggin with a rock bigger than a Dhanis firebrick!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣

Killed quite a few of them, I pondered which smelled better White Shoulders perfume or a big fat cottonmouth, it's a toss-up, same same

Good for making the place a bit more safe

I am glad we do not have them in Commyfornia or at my place in Arizona
Everything bad around here that slithers other than Politicians has a Rattle on it.
And if I ever see a rattle it will be no more if I have my say.

Ranchboss killed a rattler here in the yard about this time last year. It got stirred up by the D-5 Cat cleared cedar behind the house.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

No doubt, Bob. I used to fish a couple of small local lakes quite a bit as a teenager, in one of those canvas covered inter tube rigs that you sit in and propelled yourself with scuba flippers. Damn lake was full of those big ole nasty black water snakes that would make a rattle snake look puny.
I had one of those 10’ “dabbling” rods that you’d ease up to the cattails and drop a jig / pork rind combo right in the middle of the thick patch with, and sometimes yank out huge bass with.
Felt something brush my leg one day and looked down, and one of those big bastards stuck his head up inside the circle of the tube, between me and the tube.
I’m sure I probably screamed like a little girl, as snakes are about the only damn thing I’m deathly afraid of.
Buddy I was fishing with said it looked like me and that damn inter tube were walking on water. 😬
He laughed so hard he was crying.
Went to the LGS a few days later and had Mom purchase me on of those Mini Revolvers in .22 LR and a couple of boxes of CCI snake shot.
The canvas tube cover had a little zipper pocket on top for keeping your keys or tackle and stuff, so I attached a string to the zipper pull and tied it around the grips of the mini revolver, so I wouldn’t drop it in the water.
Don’t recall how many snakes I killed with it, but they’d usually go under and never resurface.
Luckily, I never did shoot myself in the foot with that thing. 🤪

And, of course, those black or brown ? ?? water snakes aren’t venomous, but they do have a damn schitty attitude.
Gave up on “Tube Fishing” as soon as I could afford a decent little boat and motor. 🤠

Ok. You ain’t gonna believe this. I just sent back down to take a picture of where all this occurred. And snapped this photo!



If you look toward the bottom below the water you can see two snakes! On moc is eating one of the mocs I shot this morning! I enlarged the pic!



Anyway it died too!

Sounds like a breeding ball in the making.

May we assume it was his last meal?

Those things try to get in the boat with you. The edge of a boat paddle over the head deters them. It’s the ones I don’t see that worry me.

Texas...snakes, Jeebus I had forgotten. Our Engineer unit got sent to Ft Hood back in the day, to make roads, whoopty doos, revetments and stuff for the armor guys. Of course engineers never get to sleep under a roof, hell no, we gotta camp out. Ft Hood sent out a senior NCO to give us the welcome wagon speech and show us where to laager up. He emphasized snakes were a problem in the area. Mutiny, insurrection, come nightfall, the leadership shouting, cursing, threatening article 15's...imagine 400 engineers sleeping in the beds of dump trucks, low boys, between the bows of the canvas tops. I don't know if any snakes were seen, it all died down eventually, the officers pointedly ignoring the empty pup tents.

Snakes huh??? For a minute there I thought you and uncle Red had spotted a one eyed werewolf😁

I forgot to post this close up of the aftermath of the meal.

My least favorite snake. I have caught many rattlesnakes by hand but never a Moccasin. I have let many rattlesnakes go on about their business but never a Moccasin.

Dang you found the den. Good shooting.

Maybe it's the camera... they don't look like cottonmouths to me.

Helluva belch! 😊

They are.

Compare the head color pattern of this one to the pic right above.

Marbled belly and fangs are giveaway. All waters snakes I know of have a yellow or solid color belly here.

Yep. I know that snout shape. Big pit viper.

Yep. Slit of a pupil.

👍👍👍

Damn KW, did you find yourself a Snake Pit Bubba?

Looks like the ones we have.

It was snake farm nasty!!

You would already sooooo banned Mister, if this was TikTok.

🤣🤣🤣👍👍👍

Slum,

Thats the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.

[bleep] a snake, especially them black [bleep]

Looks pretty slender for a moccasin, maybe it was starving.

Here you go Rog. Check out these two stumpy bastids

I jumped a little when one hit my boot this evening after dove hunting. I actually saw it and was in the process of jumping when it struck after I had stepped right beside it. Saw that snakey shape as my foot was coming down right by it.

Got my nervous up. A tonic is helping.

Snake Farm nasty? It pretty much is.

Yup mescans, I mean moccasins.

They are born pissed off.

Back in the early 70's while at the Biloxi river using a rope swing when another guy started to go off,we hollered but he did not stop and when he hit the water he landed in a ball of them sob's.

By the time we got him out and they got him to the hospital he was gone.

Seemed he had 20 or so bite marks on his chest.

Bad stuff for sure take care.

You seeing any birds to shoot, Doc ?

Nothing here. That nearly 6” of rain and little cold front we had blew out what few local bird there were.
Still haven’t fired a shot.

We need about 2 foot of rain to wash all these bastids down to the Pedernales and on down to Austin! In 50 years We never saw moccasins in fall creek! DRought drying stuff up. Nasty pools of water. No wonder we got em now

You should take advantage of the drought and having them clustered

Head back down to that mudhole and kill the bastards all out. Wait em out. Bring a cooler and an umbrella 👍

I was trying to get the neighbor kid other side of the hill to go do just that with me. He’s got better eyes! He remains skeptical. Kids these days. No sense of adventure 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

What kind of kid doesn’t want to go snake hunting in the creek?

We are doomed.

No schit! Id'a jumped at that chance with a vigor that would have scared the beejebes out of KW!

These bastids is the reason I purchased a Mossberg Shockwave when I was managing the water district in Florida. The Board of Commissioners gave me the authority to determine Firearm policy, so I allowed all the field staff to carry. I always had that 12 ga. shockwave pump gun in my work truck for all sorts of things we ran into, but mostly for the many Cottonmouth's we found in the line of work.

Fair to middling numbers. Hard to get a limit.

Take a light and go at night.

Pop had a snake charmer for crick based snake pursuits. Little break action 410 thing with a goofy half sized thumb hole stock.

Pretty sure I blasted more turtles than snakes.


Biggest moccasin I ever saw, my brother ran over with his yz80. 😂
He skinned it out. Used glycerin to tan the skin tacked out on a board. It was a big bastard.

Go at night????

Slummer, where the hell do you come up with this stuff?

On a side note, that’s the blackest [bleep] I’ve ever seen. Pretty sure a piece of coal would leave a white mark on his azz😂

Slummy would never make it in a swamp at night.... might not make it in the daytime.

Like some women I have met.......

Dude gots him a far stinkersher in case his preachin' sets the world afire?

If I gotta go down there at night I gonna need a pair of St. Patrick boots and the holy hand grenade of Antioch!!!

Wonder if one of those green lights that illuminate pigs and such would work on snakes. If not a Nebo led would blind em.

Both sides of the bank are honeycombed with holes,burrows, cracks, tree roots, cypress nobs, etc. I chased the one I busted with the big ass rock into on of the holes. I can just imagine at night that entire bank looks like that scene from Indiana Jones when they get trapped in that Egyptian tomb with all them asps! Very dangerous!!! All them snakes crawling outta the wall schidt!!

Smallest rattler ive ever seen. It bit off more than it could chew. Rear end is squished but its head is drawed back ready to strike again.

Its what vipers do, whether in the W House or in the wild.

Lol, If you go down there and take a picture at night I'll send you a Hershey bar!

Come see me Paul! Have I got a deal for you! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Lol, 2 Hershey bars?

I worked one spring, in the early '70's, cutting pipeline right of ways in Tn. There were lots of small rattlesnakes in those hills, outside of Hohenwald, Tn. All were about a foot long or less, and had 3 rattles and a button. It was nothing to kill 4 or 5 a day.

Too bad Slumlord is prohibited by state law from killing any snakes. He knows TWRA will come looking for him if he admits to it. Forward thinkers.

My dad and I did our best to light one up the other day when we crossed a drying-up creek much like that. Sucker was big around as your forearm. I had the windshield flipped down on my SxS and the bugger dodged about 5 rounds of 10mm, but not before he flared up at my machine like a cobra. I will say that a 10 is a bit loud under the roof of a SxS.

I posted this pic before, but we occasionally run into them in the trees and bushes. I'd rather get bit on the leg than the torso or neck....

As much as rattlesnakes don't bother me much......................................



I'm pretty sure I'd not be a fan of living where there are moccasins.

They will lay up on the scraggly tops of stumps of broke over trees in the woods too.

They can make you leave a horse walking a fence line trail when the stump on the fence is 5 ft high.

They are also fond of sunning themselves around dock pilings. My mother damn near grabbed onto one years ago when she reached up to grab the piling as we were going into the dock. Dad saw it just in time and told her to pull her hand back......my mother HATED snakes! LOL

I wished now I had got a pic of em all laying in the mud and water in wait. All curled up like the evil vipers they are. But I was too busy shootin’. ( and reloadin’)

🤣

I was just rereading Lonesome Dove and the river crossing/snake bite scene last week. Gruesome sounding way to die.

Watcha gotta do is to get an 1100, add a magazine extension, and load it to the gills with trap loads. Then, go to town on 'em. Trap loads will do the trick, if you're close enough. Keep it topped off, though, in case you run into bunches of 'em.

Oh, I have both 870 and Win model 12 riot guns. Single shots do make it more exciting

We've been on snake hunting parties when the creeks/rivers are up in the spring. Everybody brings an ATV and a 22 pistol. Pick roads that lead to the water, pull up the water's edge, and slowly ride out just a couple feet to make a little commotion. Shut the the quads off, stand up on your pegs/floorboards, and look around. Not a thing to kill ten or so in a couple hours. Some have swam under the quads before.