My wife wants to know whats wrong with our son. This is his favorite thing to do on our land. The snakes live under the plywood and rubber roofing I use to cover up our tractors/implements. There has been upwards of 15 snakes under the tarps at once. This is his biggest yet a 4ft plus fox snake.7yr old snake catcher
- Thread starter ruskbucks
- Start date
My wife wants to know whats wrong with our son. This is his favorite thing to do on our land. The snakes live under the plywood and rubber roofing I use to cover up our tractors/implements. There has been upwards of 15 snakes under the tarps at once. This is his biggest yet a 4ft plus fox snake.
*Hawaii5joe*
5 year old buck +
I really don't care for them. They don't bother me that much anymore. They like living in my tractor and shed. My relationship with snakes is me chasing them on the zero turn mower. I think in central MN, we only have garters and bull snakes though.
j-bird
Moderator
It's all fun and games until he finds something dangerous! I remember as a kid we used to catch them all the time (garter and corn snakes) and then we went down to the creek and we pulled a big one out from under a rock by the tail and stuck in in a large bucket and lid and brought it up to the house to show dad the big snake we caught. The adults didn't think much of it until we dumped out the bucket and about a 5' cottonmouth come out of it. Grown men scattered like little girls! Obviously we as kids didn't know any better. Other than some dirty shorts and bruised ego's everyone was fine. We where not allowed to catch snakes down at the creek anymore. Its all just part of being a kid.
SD51555
5 year old buck +
I'm pretty tough around garter snakes. I had a 4' bull snake run out from under a rock in a parking lot on me in MT and I learned that I still had my ability to jump 3' feet in the air from a stationary position. I also did the triple jump across the rocks back to the truck.
wiscwhip
5 year old buck +
They never bothered me too much, but I don't go out of my way to interact with them. I know I am in close proximity to all manner of snakes every time I'm out trout fishing. Kinda hard to see them when your wading through chest high grass to get down to the water's edge. The worst snakes we have here are the eastern timber rattlers, not super common to have an encounter with one, but not unheard of either. I usually see or hear one within a few feet of me about every other summer or so. We used to encounter them a lot more when I was a kid drifting down the Lower Lemonweir soaking chicken livers for catfish. The d*mn things would hang out on branches overhanging the water and we even had a few that dropped right into the boat, needless to say those didn't make it.
I have a coworker who's daughter is just enamored with the things. She love all types of snakes and will pick them up whenever she gets the chance. He told me they were going out to the county park I frequent, which lies on a large island in the middle of the Mississippi River, and I warned them to be careful of the massasauga rattlers that live out there. I have only encountered one that was alive, but I see a lot of them, both young and old that are chopped up by the big mowers they use to keep all the picnic areas and playground areas mowed. The place contains phenomenal habitat for them. They have a fair population of both timber rattlers and more commonly the smaller massasauga rattlesnakes over on the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge where I grew up as well.
I have a coworker who's daughter is just enamored with the things. She love all types of snakes and will pick them up whenever she gets the chance. He told me they were going out to the county park I frequent, which lies on a large island in the middle of the Mississippi River, and I warned them to be careful of the massasauga rattlers that live out there. I have only encountered one that was alive, but I see a lot of them, both young and old that are chopped up by the big mowers they use to keep all the picnic areas and playground areas mowed. The place contains phenomenal habitat for them. They have a fair population of both timber rattlers and more commonly the smaller massasauga rattlesnakes over on the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge where I grew up as well.
B
bat man
Guest
Send him over. They are waiting.
*Hawaii5joe*
5 year old buck +
That's good SD. Lol
*Hawaii5joe*
5 year old buck +
This is what my tractor looked like a few weeks ago. Startled the crap out of me because I wasn't expecting it. One wouldn't come out of the radiator area so we went out and did a food plot together. I'm guessing he may have got chopped up by the fan blade if he wasn't careful.
phil@thesidehill
5 year old buck +
i have an unusually high number of garters in and around my yard this year....not sure why. this past sunday while mowing, i spotted 4 different garters in different parts of the yard....one of them didnt escape the mower. In general they dont bother me....but on occasion they definitely surprise the crap out of me. When i was a summer camp director we had a collectors permit from the DEC to capture animals and keep them in the nature center. we had 22 various sized aquaria and 6 of them were dedicated for reptiles and amphibians...the rest were set up for fresh water fish etc. Myself and one of my environmental/wildlife education instructors took it upon ourselves to fill the tanks. I got pretty good at catching and handling snakes. My favorites were the eastern hognose....very cool critter. The campers usually had a ball watching them take down a toad 4 times the size of their heads.