For 25 minutes, my sons and I had been watching a herd of impala feeding in the thick shady bush just beyond a dry riverbed. The closest impala was only 40m from us so we had to be really quiet and avoid unnecessary movement. I was hoping that an impala would step into a clearing and offer my younger son the opportunity to shoot his first antelope but it was not to be. The impala started drifting further into the thicket and, given the lay of the land, I felt that to continue following them would likely result in the animals becoming aware of us. I needed another impala or two for the batch of meat I was going to process so I decided to take a shot myself, if possible, before the animals completely disappeared. At that distance I preferred to take a neck shot but there was brush in the way and when I had a small window of opportunity to put in a heart/lung shot, I took it. We heard the bullet making contact but lost sight of the impala in the thick bush. I found blood immediately and tried to follow it but the thick bush would not allow me to stay on the spoor. I kept having to go around thornbushes and then continue on the bloodspoor on the other side. It was heavy going but we found the ewe lying about 40m from where she had been standing when I shot her. There was no way I was going to be able to drag that impala back along the route we had just taken. However, the dry riverbed was only about 30m to my left and the bush was not as thick in that direction. I folded a piece of toilet paper and hung it on a nearby thornbush so that I could easily return to the impala. Indeed, the bush was not nearly as thick toward the riverbed. The riverbank was slightly higher than the riverbed itself and I picked up momentum as I went down down the slope into the riverbed. Suddenly, I noticed a juvenile Mozambique Spitting Cobra, only a metre long, directly in my path and not more than half a metre from my foot. It's shiny yellowish body contrasted sharply against the black sand of the riverbed and the purple markings on it's head stood out. Not that I spent too much time analysing the different colours at that point. I was back-pedaling and trying to reverse back up the slope that I had just come down. My sons, who I always tell to "stay close", had done just that and were now blocking my escape. My boots were wheel-spinning in the sand as I tried to get enough purchase to propel myself - along with my sons if necessary - back up the slope and out of danger. At the same time I was saying "oh no, oh no, move back, move back". With all the commotion going on, the cobra spread it's hood but did not lift it's head up to face me. I fully expected it to lift it's head at any moment and spray me liberally in the eyes with it's venom. Instead, with it's head face down and it's hood continuously spread it slithered to my right, found a crevice in the side of the riverbank and disappeared into it. This was the first Mozambique spitting cobra I have ever encountered whilst hunting and, thankfully, it was not aggressive at all. Still, for the rest of the day, all sticks in my path were carefully studied and inspected before going closer to them and every rustle in the grass made me quite jumpy. The darn Swainson's and Crested spurfowl flushing loudly next to me almost caused me to go into cardiac arrest. We rarely see snakes on our annual week-long family hunting holiday on my friend's farm but on this trip we saw a Mozambique spitting cobra, a black mamba, a puff-adder and a snake we could not identify.

Hope you had some toilet paper left over. Great story.

Glad the cobra was in a good mood and didn't spit at you!

WOW! that could have been bad.
i'm glad we don't have those suckers over here.

Good night Myrtle................


No thanks.

I'll pass

Well done, Dimitri...and well written!

I've never seen the Moz Spitting Cobra. Banded Egyptian Cobra, yes...big sod.

You can have 'em all as far as I'm concerned!

Mark

Way to think quickly and not panic

You just didn't want your boys having to pee in your eyes.

That was a good story.

On my only trip to Africa to hunt. I only saw one snake. I think it was called pygmy adder or dwarf or something like that. PH said they were not all that agressive, say like a Momba but still lights out if one bites you.

The camp I hunted in had wall with pictures of hunters and others running form a Momba that came into camp. Picture of a couch one of the PH's blew all to hell trying to kill it. If I recall it got away and they never saw it again. It must have been a mean one. It was chasing trackers, hunters and everybody in camp ran for their lives.

As Hemingway maintained, "Grace under pressure.".

great story, thank the Lord every one is safe.

Scary !!

Thank you for your concern and kind feedback everybody.

We are "blessed" with 3 spitters in South Africa:

Mozambique Spitting Cobra - Common in Limpopo, Gauteng, KwaZuluNatal and Mpumalanga provinces. Accounts for the majority of serious snakebites in SA but fatalities are rare. I just read that they sometimes "spit" without even spreading a hood so I count myself even more lucky! They are notorious for entering into houses and biting people in their beds. Bad news snake - except the one I came across which was very well behaved.

Black Spitting Cobra - Found in the Western Cape and Norther Cape Provinces. Shy snake and bites are extremely rare.

Rinkhals - Found in all SA provinces. Not a true cobra but does spread a hood. Common. I've come across a number of these snakes over the years. My friend's GSP was bitten twice on the face by a ringkhals and the dog was dead 25 minutes later.

And then we are also blessed with 3 non-spitting cobras including cape cobra (drop for drop one of the most venomous snakes in SA), snouted cobra (previously known as the Egyptian cobra), Forest cobra (our largest cobra, can exceed 2.7m).

And those are just our cobras.

Years back when I hunted with Scottco Safari's in South Africa. I asked Yako Scott why he did used that really nice Truck setting in the dirve with grass growing all up around it. I even asked how long its been setting there. He said a year or so. I said why.

He said they only had the truck a short while and he got it in one morning with a hunter and an Egyption Cobra fell out from under the dash/steering column between his legs. He said he and the hunter jumps out ran like hell and to this day he has never opened door. He said on of the trackers said the snake was not in the truck any more but he didn't care, he had other trucks.

Great story. I bet that gave you some cold sweats!