I've never had a bite from a non-venomous snake burn or swell.

All I can say if the snake butes you on the backside while you're going #2 and your survival depends on the cut and suck, you gonna die suckah!

The lady we bought our Border Collie from in Bridgeport nearly died from a rattler bite. I don't remember if she told us of any first aid measures, I just remember her telling us about being transported from one hospital to another hospital's ICU. It was a bad ordeal.

Her doghouses were barrels suspended by cables above the ground. I asked what that was all about and she said for snakes.

A snake bit me around 8 years ago on my birthday. We had been working on a boat dock on dry land for 3-4 hours and six of us picked it up to move it into the water. Wearing flip-flops, I walked thru a pile of leaves that had collected under the dock. A fifteen-foot long copper-mouthed diamond headed rattle moccasin cobra constrictor nailed me on the big toe. (After we killed it, I realized it was only a sub two-foot long copperhead) I had to spend 10 hours in the Hospital on 4th of July weekend with no beer on my birthday. That sucked. Well my good "friends" thought that was some funny crap. And ever since then they think any dead snake needs to be left coiled up in or by my truck or boat. I'm so damn snake shy now that if I hunt without snake boots on, what ever I am hunting needs to be on the ground right where I am walking or I probably won’t see it. So for now on from March thru November, I will no longer go out in the field without snake boots on.

I also have a female lab that’s been bit on the face by copperheads on two separate occasions. Both times her face swelled up pretty bad, and she looked pretty ill. I gave her two benadryls every two hours for about half a day and she was fine after a couple of days of rest. My male lab is my field dog and I get him snake broke every year along with administering rattlesnake vaccinations twice a year. I always carry benadryl with me in all of my hunting bags in case a copperhead hits him. I also keep one of those yellow extractor pump kits in my Ranger’s glove box for me or someone else as a last resort.

I got home from work a couple of days ago and there was a copperhead coiled up on my front porch. The good part is that it saved me a 9mm shell because it was already dead.

My wife saw a roadrunner in the grass by our back deck earlier in the day. It was wrestling with a snake. She said the bird was whipping the snake and pecking at it. She saw the roadrunner jump off the deck with the snake. It must have come to the front of the house and deposited the snake on the front porch. The head was pretty mangled.

The scariest part is that I'm still building the deck and I would have been walking through and sorting lumber out of the grass where the snake was.

The roadrunner saved me. I wonder if that roadrunner was paying me back for hollering at my dog for chasing it the other day?

I would suggest that to maintain good relations with the roadrunner don't accept delivery of any packages marked "ACME". He might get the wrong idea...

Caught 2 five foot bull snakes doin it outside my unit (work trailer/office) in the middle of location at about noon yesterday. One was PISSED when I pulled them away from each other and one struck at me enough to piss me off so he misplaced his head. The other one I threw in a bucket until I could show my buddy when he woke up.
Then we let that one go (didn't try to strike me) lol.

Try walking thru waist hiogh Johnson Grass and stepping smack in the middle of a Bull Snake that big.

Not only will you re-arrange his anatomy, but you'll also lose a pair of underwear and possibly the jeans your wearing.

That is probably why I have never been bit by any of the rattlers I have stepped on, one Bull snake and you learn how to warp between one location and another.

Quote:

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and one struck at me enough to piss me off so he misplaced his head.

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You killed a protected species?

nope, he misplaced his head.

i couldn't find anything saying that a bull snake was protected anyways, but it turns out it was a western coachwhip. I just looked it up. The rig hands said it was probably a bull snake but it looked nothing like a bull snake. Looked just like this.
http://www.texas-venomous.com/testaceus.html

lol, I swear

Bite from a small copperhead...3 wks after photo...No venom, but had infection from bite...Was on med.(Antibo) for 21 days... With in 6 hrs of bite,all joints in right hand, arm and shoulder were killing me with pain. Had to pack them in ice, which helped some...for 3 days felt like I had the flu...the snake was a little over a ft. long... The little boys can make you sick ,even if they dont get the venom in yea... Use gloves when cleaning out from under trees...

The other day my little bro, 14, called me up proud as can be, to tell me he killed a copperhead with his bare hands by smashing its head in with a rock. If Id a been there I woulda whooped his a$$ for getin that close to one.

Thought you guys might get a kick out of the following account. If the length is excessive, I apologize in advance.


Texas Fish & Game Saltwater Fishing Editor, Chester Moore, in an article once labeled me a "snake molester." His sole basis for the rude appellation was the fact that I have twice been bitten by copperhead snakes.

I suppose one could argue that since I was holding the first one in my hand and standing on the second, I was in fact "molesting" them. Nonetheless, naming your Noble Leader a "snake molester" (in print, no less) is just plain wrong.

Anyway, since Moore "outed" me, I thought it might be instructive (and entertaining to some, no doubt) to relate the details of what it is like to suffer snakebite without the succor of medical treatment.

That's right, I did not seek medical attention after either bite. Before you add "idiot" to "snake molester," consider my reasoning.

As an ardent amateur naturalist from my boyhood, I was well versed in the affects of snakebite, the various venoms, and treatments thereof at the time of both bites. I knew that copperhead envenomation was rarely fatal except among the very young or feeble. I also knew that administration of antivenin for copperhead bite was equally rare, and the doctor would most likely just admit me for overnight observation, then send me home the next day. Further, on the first occasion, I did not have medical insurance and frankly could not afford a hospital visit. Therefore, on both snakebite occasions, I opted to "tough it out."

On the first occasion, I was moving from the backyard a pile of logs leftover from the construction of my house (yes, I live in a log house). When I picked up the last log, I felt a sharp sting on my left index finger between the knuckle and second finger joint. I thought it was a scorpion picked up with the log because I felt multiple "hits," and imagined the arachnid with its body trapped between my hand and the log, popping me with its tail.

Scorpion stings do not bother me much, so I walked on toward the pile with the log. I did not realize it was a copperhead bite until I dropped the log onto the pile and saw the 18-inch serpent writhing from my hand, its left fang buried to the hilt in my finger. I had picked up the snake along with the log. (There were actually two copperheads under that last log, so in retrospect, I was actually lucky.) The multiple "stings" were actually fresh injections of venom each time the snake writhed to free itself.

I got one helluva venom load from that boy.

The bite occurred at approximately 11 a.m. Friends were coming over that afternoon for barbecue, so I decided to not mention the bite to my wife or anyone else, and went about my business firing up the smoker and whatnot.

Within a few minutes of the bite, there was a distinct "coppery" taste in my mouth, followed by numbness in my lips. Localized numbness soon replaced the initial stinging sensation at the envenomation site. After about four hours, I felt the first wave of nausea, but a dose of Dramamine from the medicine cabinet squelched it quite effectively. I entertained our guests without difficulty, and later went to bed.

By the next morning, my entire arm was swollen to twice normal size to the elbow. My fingers were the size of sausages. My Spidel Twist-O-Flex watchband was stretched to maximum and beginning to cut off circulation; I cut it off with tin snips.

By the end of the day, my arm felt as if severely sunburned. The slightest touch sent paroxysms of pain shooting through the entire arm. The touch of a feather (literally, I tested it) felt like the stab of a red-hot knife.

After several days of severe pain and hypersensitivity, the pain resolved to a persistent dull ache. The swelling lasted a week, then began to subside. I suffered no permanent injury.

One other aspect of the experience bears telling, a curious phenomenon I have never seen alluded to elsewhere: People who spend a lot of time in copperhead country are familiar with the serpent's "musty" smell, and can frequently detect a snake's presence by scent alone without seeing it. When the swelling in my arm began to go down, I started smelling copperhead.

At first, I thought it was all in my head, but and acquaintance confirmed the phenomenon real when I got within nose range. "Damn! You stink like a copperhead," I believe were his exact words. Anyway, the more the swelling subsided, the stronger the smell became, oozing out with my sweat and permeating my clothes with the acrid odor. Toward the last, my wife (who has also been bitten, as has her nephew) made me undress outside each day so I would not stink up the house. It was nearly three weeks before all the poison processed out of my system and I once again smelled more or less human.

That first bite was some 20-odd years ago. My second too-close encounter was more recent, October 2004.

I will save myself the embarrassment of relating exactly *how* it happened. Suffice it to say a 24-inch copperhead nailed my right big toe with a single fang as I stood on it, wearing canvas deck shoes with a convenient hole worn through at the bite site.

The events of this bite were similar to the first one in many respects (same overall effects, nausea, and pain progression) yet quite different in others: lesser venom dose (just one quick squirt), less swelling, bleeding, tissue necrosis, and--most importantly--this time, I got pictures!

[Photos available if anyone is interested.]

The bite occurred around 9:30 p.m. By the next morning, the toe and most of the foot displayed mild swelling and redness.

By the third day, the discoloration varied with areas of red, purple, and yellow, and a small hemorrhage appeared at the envenomation site. I had general joint pain throughout my entire right leg and hip.

On the fifth day, the toe was very inflamed and the hemotoxic venom caused bleeding around the edges of the toenail.

By the sixth day, the bite site became necrotic and a small area of flesh sloughed off. The toenail bleeding continued for several more days.

I limped around with a walking cane for the first week or so, then the swelling and pain subsided and I could get by without the cane. I made a full recovery, mostly uneventful except that the right half of the toenail came loose from the underlying tissue and I had to cut it off.

Now you know why Chester called me a "snake molester," which, in retrospect, I suppose is fair. After all, I first called him "Garface," but that's another story.

a family friend who my dad grew up hunting with,and who i was lucky enough to hunt with a few time's was bitten by a rattle snake once or twice. and he and everyone around him swore he could smell them,i'm not going to say what he says they smelt like. still everybody that knew him said he could definitely smell and had saved one or two of them while dove or quail hunting. i got to experience this one time while dove hunting when one i shot barrelled into a big ol' cactus. now i know it's not unheard of by no means that rattlers will set up under the cover of a cactus,but at my age then i was thouroghly impressed. i was walking towards it when he stopped me,and said there was a rattler in their and from the stench he figured a big one. he threw a rock in their and the rattler went off,after dispatching it with a 12ga. it was a good size rattler 5' or so best i can remember. they do have a definite odor to them,but it make sense that someone bitten by them or someone who handle's them all the time would have hightend sense's to their odor. i wonder if their has been any study's on this.

Welcome to the THF.

Hope you stick around and enjoy the campfire, lots of really great folks on here, and a few Old Farts, in fact you may qualify for membership in our O.F.C..

Reading your story reminds me of a story I read about a guy that intentionally let a porcupine hit him on the calf of one of his legs, and then just let one of the quills work its way thru just to see how long it would take to go from one side of his leg to the other.

Seems like it took something over a week.

Again, Welcome to the campfire and keep up the good work with TF&G magazine.

You’re bragging about this! Very foolish, and I recommended anybody reading this to take it with a grain of salt. Get to the hospital immediately!!!

welcom dzaidle

crazyhorse what post would you be referring to?

Not a post, it was an article in the Smithsonian Magazine that I read a few years back.

Guy was a field Biologist studying Quill Pigs.

I don't think the guy really let the pig hit him on purpose, but however it happened, he got some quills in the calf of one leg, and he decided as an experiment to just see what would happen if he did not try to remove it.

Hwy_man, your right about people seeking medical help A.S.A.P., but I remember an old man up in the Throckmorton/ Young county area, lived in Padgett, and him and his brother had a little gas station and store there.

Outside the store they had a "Snake Pit" and they kept rattlers in it. The old mans name was "Doc" Womack.

He had been bit so many times, that if he got hit, legend has it, he would grab a pint of whiskey, go get in the shade to get cool, and drink that pint, and he lived to be an old man.

kind of like those hooda snake handlers that believe if you get bit and die you have sinned. they had a deal on them on nightline or 20/20,well one of those shows. and they showed this ol' preacher man. his fingers were all crooked and his knuckles looked like acorns. it's illegal for them to practice that ceremony anymore,but they said he never seeked medical attention. but it looked like he was not enjoying life to much.