Year of the Snakes...

[Al Agnew]

On 7/25/2025 at 7:38 AM, ColdWaterFshr said:

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.

Yup, typical JF cottonmouth.  I've never seen a really big one there; most were 24-30 inches long.  It was there, on a solo three day float, that I got within striking distance of one.  I was camped on the gravel bar and after dark I wanted to walk along the edge of the bar and shine a flashlight into the water to see what kind of fish or crawdads were out roaming around.  I just happened to shine the light on the bar in front of my feet and one was coiled and staring at me, about a foot away from my lead foot.  My next step would have landed atop it, or just past it.  I backed up, it uncoiled and swam off.

Here's a very pretty one from several years ago on the Jacks Fork.

And the only one I saw on a solo float last summer on the JF...

[steve l]

Yup on the JF - have seen plenty over the years. Had one like two feet away from me as I was walking along gravel fishing I didn't notice until I just caught movement. Up in the I suspect defensive position mouth wide open. The ol' two-step high-step was underway pretty quick.

And yeah, not uncommon at all to see them on the 11P. It's always a tug a war with the Mrs as I want to take a (from a respectful distance) look and she doesn't.

[Greasy B]

The first time I found a Black Snake in the chicken coop it had just started to wrap its mouth around an egg. I pulled the egg out of its mouth and searched for something to wack it with. That one climbed the barn wall in an amazing escape. After a bit of thought I realized the snake was probably eating far more mice than eggs, he was probably a net positive as the barn has few mice, I’m now taking a live and let live approach. The next snake I found had already swallowed the egg and curled up in the nesting box to digest. Problem was it took weeks, I got tired of him and tossed him in the woods. A couple weeks ago I found the one in the picture swallowing a golf ball that I keep in the nest box as a decoy. Funny thing it passed up a perfectly good egg to eat the golf ball. Shortly after I started to feel sorry if the darn thing died gagging on a golf ball, I went back to the coop but he had either detected the fake or got scared and left. 

[tjm]

46 minutes ago, Greasy B said:

After a bit of thought I realized the snake was probably eating far more mice than eggs, he was probably a net positive as the barn has few mice,

I wouldn't bet on that I've had those snakes eat dozens of eggs while there were hundreds of mice invading the feed room the snakes crawled through to access the nest boxes. I've removed black snakes that had as many as 5 egg lumps in them and I've watched one take an egg from under a hen while she was on the nest. One summer I relocated 10-12 black snakes and there was never an indication that they had eaten even one mouse. I do suspect the occasional copperheads that I found in the feed room were there for the mice, but they made me nervous so they didn't get to stay there. 

[jdmidwest]

6 hours ago, Greasy B said:

The first time I found a Black Snake in the chicken coop it had just started to wrap its mouth around an egg. I pulled the egg out of its mouth and searched for something to wack it with. That one climbed the barn wall in an amazing escape. After a bit of thought I realized the snake was probably eating far more mice than eggs, he was probably a net positive as the barn has few mice, I’m now taking a live and let live approach. The next snake I found had already swallowed the egg and curled up in the nesting box to digest. Problem was it took weeks, I got tired of him and tossed him in the woods. A couple weeks ago I found the one in the picture swallowing a golf ball that I keep in the nest box as a decoy. Funny thing it passed up a perfectly good egg to eat the golf ball. Shortly after I started to feel sorry if the darn thing died gagging on a golf ball, I went back to the coop but he had either detected the fake or got scared and left. 

That is why they have always been called chicken snakes.  They eat lots of eggs from any type of bird.

My HS Science teacher had a way to trap them, tape a fish hook on the egg with some fishing line.  Come back to a mad snake, but you can break it from taking eggs.

[Ryan Miloshewski]

The old trailer I stay in where I turkey and deer hunt has a resident rat snake. He is about 5-feet long. He lives in the trailer at times, but I don't mind. The mouse problem greatly diminishes when he's around. I stopped putting out poison once I noticed it frequenting the trailer. I'd say he/she is about as effective as the poison. I see it sunbathing in the spring right outside on the gravel. I have one of its sheds hung up in the trailer. 

Fished the Eleven Point in June with my buddy Dave. We hiked in to where we wanted to fish. We got to one of the "marshy" areas and started the trek to the river. Dave went first. He got into some high weeds and kept going. I saw the weeds move, and waited. Out came a 3-foot cottonmouth. I told Dave "hey come look at what you just stepped over." I watched it for a while, as it was very intent on not being around us. It got into a low water area and just sat there, waiting for us to leave. 

I don't mind snakes, though. I did relocation, surgery and tracking of Timber Rattlesnakes in college. Have an internationally published article because of it. That was fun!