Year of the Snakes...

[jdmidwest]

8 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

I can 100% verify that there are cottonmouth and timber rattlers at least 4 counties north of those lines. What I can't verify is ANYONE that has ever been bitten by one. 

Copperheads however, I know numerous folks that have been hit by them...... including myself.    I think mine was a dry bite though, because the shot made me feel WAY sicker than the bite did. 

I took a pic of a cottonmouth 10 years ago at Mark Twain Lake boat ramp and posted online.  We were waiting for our turn at the ramp and watching it swim around.

[fishinwrench]

When they started blasting and moving ground during construction of Cannon Dam they unearthed a surprising number of Timber Rattlers.    The biggest I know of was killed by a bird hunter in late November and there was frost on the ground that morning.   There were 9-11 buttons on its rattle. 

[Al Agnew]

Okay, you guys that say that cottonmouths are north of the range map, you're gonna have to show some evidence.  I've had several people over the years swear that they have cottonmouths in their farm pond north of the Missouri River, and actually send me pictures.  The pictures invariably showed they misidentified water snakes.  So if you have photos, please post them.  

I've lived all my life near or on Big River and Meramec River, and have many thousands of hours on all thes streams in the Meramec system, and have never once seen a cottonmouth there.  Where I HAVE seen cottonmouths...upper Gasconade, Big Piney, James, Current, St. Francis.  But the one stream that has the most cottonmouths of anyplace I've been in Missouri is the upper Jacks Fork.  I NEVER go there in the summer without seeing at least one per day.  My record was 11 in three days.

A few other things...Benadryl does nothing for snake bites.  It's for allergic reactions.  Snake venom is not an allergic reaction.  Latest info from the experts is that Benadryl is completely useless, whether given to a human or a pet.  Don't bother.  Also, forget about snakebite kits.  They don't work and often do harm.  Forget about tourniquets.  Just attempt to keep the victim's heart rate as low as possible and get them to a hospital.  And you don't have to kill the snake or take pictures of it for identification purposes; the antivenin is now the same for all the pit vipers (and we don't have coral snakes in MO, so you don't need coral snake antivenin if you're bitten in MO or northern AR--the farthest north coral snakes are is far southern AR).

There has been one snakebite death in Missouri in the last decade or more.  It was from a copperhead and the victim had serious underlying health issues (I believe a serious heart condition).  There have been five reported deaths since 1933.  So snakebites are not a death sentence.  But you sure as heck don't want to get bitten.  I know several people that got bitten by copperheads and it was a VERY unpleasant experience.

Cottonmouths routinely swim with their whole bodies on the surface.  And they swim in kind of a distinctive way.  BUT...a whole lot of terrestrial snakes swim with bodies floating as well, and water snakes also swim that way on occasion.  If you've seen a lot of confirmed cottonmouths swimming, you can recognize that distinctive way they swim, but you can't really describe it.  So swimming on the surface is NOT a good way to identify them.

Cottonmouths WILL swim up to your boat.  It's happened to me a bunch of times.  They are not looking to attack you.  They seem to be curious as to what that big new floating thing is, and I doubt that they even realize you're in it until you do something to discourage them.  Splashing them with my paddle does the trick.  I've also had a copperhead swim up to my canoe.  It decided that it appeared too difficult to get up onto the canoe, and swam around the front end and over to a log coming off the bank, where it crawled up to rest.  And by the way, if you see a snake in the water, it's almost certainly not going to be a copperhead, although a whole lot of people misidentify common water snakes as copperheads.  In 60 years of hanging out on Ozark streams, I've seen exactly two copperheads in the water; that one I mentioned above and one other that was swimming from one side of the creek to the other.  And I've seen thousands of water snakes in that time.

I have been within striking distance of at least four copperheads (that I know of), one cottonmouth, and a prairie rattlesnake.  None attempted to bite me.

[fishinwrench]

30 minutes ago, Al Agnew said:

Okay, you guys that say that cottonmouths are north of the range map, you're gonna have to show some evidence.

Whether you believe it or not is of no concern of mine, but I have positively ID'd them myself..... And actually pryed their mouth open to look at the fangs. 

The same rivers "north of the range" that hold Smallmouth Bass also have Cottonmouth.....and they are far from rare.   They have Hellbenders too (or at least they did when I was younger).  

I agree about the misidentification thing around ponds and strip pits though.....Seen/heard that so many times that it is annoying.   But around the rivers they are there.     

Honestly.  

[jdmidwest]

Mark Twain Lake 7/30/2019 cottonmouth at Florida boat ramp.

https://forums.ozarkanglers.com/topic/67185-fished-all-around-florida-sunday/#comment-583331

[ColdWaterFshr]

Mr. Cotton swam right up to within 20 feet of our tent on the Jacks Fork last weekend.  I think he was curious.  We walked up slowly and fairly close to him in a non-threatening way and we told him this was our gravel bar and we had made reservations.   He bid us adieu and slithered away.  

I've floated far and wide and across many rivers and creeks.  The only place I've seen Mr. Cotton is the Jacks Fork.  Water snakes I've seen everywhere.  Copperheads everywhere, but always on land.  Biggest and only rattlesnake I've seen was on the Eleven Point, swimming toward the drift boat.  It was huge, and there was no mistaking its tail.

Copperheads freak me out the worst because they are so well camoflaged and don't usually move until you are right up on them.

[fishinwrench]

2 hours ago, ColdWaterFshr said:

Copperheads freak me out the worst because they are so well camoflaged 

 

Yeah, they might as well be invisible. 

[oneshot 1]

19 hours ago, jdmidwest said:

Did you snag the valve and it let go when you scooted out, or was that before all that is going on now...

Oh that was way before, back when we lived at farm. 

oneshot 

[oneshot 1]

One time my wife told me to walk around the pickup I was working on and had me come long way around to get on the Deck. 

She says look on the ground under the pickup. There was a Copperhead she said yea every time you would move it would rear back to strike. 

oneshot 

[Al Agnew]

On 7/25/2025 at 5:09 AM, jdmidwest said:

Mark Twain Lake 7/30/2019 cottonmouth at Florida boat ramp.

https://forums.ozarkanglers.com/topic/67185-fished-all-around-florida-sunday/#comment-583331

Impossible to identify for sure from that photo, but I highly doubt it is a cottonmouth.  Body is too long and slender.  Gotta have better evidence than that to say that there are cottonmouths that far out of their known range.