Khukuries and Snakes.

Rusty

Rusty

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In "Romancing the Stone" with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, there's a scene where he lops the head of a bushmaster off with a machete as it pokes it's head out from behind Kathleens neck. That's fiction, but still a memorable part of the script.

So does anyone have any real life snake stories? Something about them makes many ( but not all ) reasonably manly men turn tail and bolt right out of the blue.

Sign me "...I'm already gone..." the Eagles.
 
Skeeter Skelton once wrote that his neighbors kidded him about his propensity for shootig the snakes he encountered around his house with a .44, when his granma' just chopped them with a garden hoe. "You could at least use a .22, like everyone else". Skeeter replied that (1) he wasn't as tough as his grandmother, and (2) a .44 will do anything a .22 will do, and twice as much of it.
Maybe with a 40" Kobra....nawww...I'll just use the .45 :rolleyes:
 
On a weekend camping trip last summer, we had a rattler come into one of my buddy's tents. Couldn't get close enough to move it with a stick or anything and when we got close enough with the biggest stick we could find, it started rattling. So I apologize to my buddy in advance and I go off to look for the biggest rock available that I could pick up. He didn't quite get what I was gonna do until he saw me lob it in, followed by a weird crackling sound.
 
When I was younger and much quicker, I used to catch snakes by hand. Always black snakes or garden snakes.

I left the cottonmouths and copperheads to the crazy dudes I ran with.

Snakes are actually good for the environment. And even the poisionous types will avoid humans if given a chance.

They don't taste bad either. Sort of like frog legs. :D
 
I don't kill them anymore unless it's a must do situation. Back in my killing days I'd use anything handy -- hoe, rake, .22 or the old faithful rock. I suppose everybody was/is better off that I didn't have khukuris available in my killing days.
 
Our area is rocky, and seems to be favored mostly by copperheads. The Cairn takes care of what little rodent problem we have (field mice and groundhogs), and I take care of the Cairn. My ecological balance allows me to sleep better without the copperheads, since I woke up with one a few years ago. Floors aren't hard to patch, either. Eardrums are another matter :eek:
 
I was at my grandad's house in SW florida minding my own business and helping clean up his yard. There was a big grapefruit tree ( Yum, can still taste 'em!) next to his shed. I was cutting up some palm frawns with an old spring steel machete. Out of the overhead tree drops a big black snake. The thing coils up, rears back, and strikes at me. Big Mistake, Mr. Big Black Snake!

At this point, I jump back and take a swipe at him with the weapon literally at hand. Cut the top of his head off and left the lower jaw in tact. I couldn't do that again on a bet. I then made sure he was a "Good and dead" snake. Later that day a neighbor confirmed that it wasn't poisonous. Had I had some more space, maybe Mr. Big Black snake may have lived longer!

-Craig
 
"When Nag the basking cobra hears the careless foot of man,
He will often wriggle sideways and avoid it, if he can.
But his mate makes no such motion, as she camps beside the trail,
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male."

- Rudyard Kipling
 
About a year and a half ago, I went outside to chop some saplings at the fence line, more to relieve the boredom than anything else. After chopping a few of them, I looked down and noticed a brown colored snake partly buried under some leaves. After a few initial attempts (didn't want to get bit by the harmless snake, big tough outdoorsman that I am);):rolleyes: I caught it. The snake turned out to be a Worm Snake (Western Worm Snake I believe), a placid snake with a sharp tail and a beautiful pink belly. I had never seen one before, so catching and handling one for a while made up for the otherwise drab day.

Bob
 
A few years back I used to walk at our local nature preserves almost every day the weather was nice. I made a lot of friends at the preserves among the staff and got to see a lot of things the average person walking through might not.
One of my good friends Eddie was driving to Redbud Valley for another day at work when he spotted what looked like to be a small non poisonous snake crossing the road.
Eddie stopped and caught it, he always has cloth bags to keep such captives in until he's ready to release them, and come to find out it wasn't a snake at all!!!!!!!
It was a legless lizard!!!!!!! Now until I met some of the people out there I wasn't all that knowledgeable about a lot of Oklahoma's wildlife and I sure didn't know about legless lizards.
Eddie pulled it outta the bag and handed it to me, still looked like a snake to me, and said, "Watch its eye's." so I did and the thing Blinked!!!!
Snakes cannot blink their eyes, but legless lizards like all lizards can!!!! It was a beautiful little creature and Eddie said they aren't as plentiful as they used to be here.
Eddie took it way back into the area where the little lizard would be in its proper habitat and released it.
Redbud Valley has several eco systems as it goes from an arid sort of prairie, to rocky bluffs, to nice dry woods, to a sandy creek that runs along side part of it with the nice woods there, mosquitos as well in season, Lots of 'em and Big uns too!!!!!!
If I happen to be caught down in that area I kill the 'skeeters. They dayumed sure ain't endangered!!!!:D
 
This is kind of a snake story. If you have a dog, and you have snakes, get the dog through snake training and save a couple of thousand dollars or more on anti-venom, treatment, and animal hospital stays -if you like the dog enough. This story comes from personal experience.

We had a baby diamondback in the living room one morning last year, and I walked up on an adult when headed to the main valve on our water storage tank a while back. I just walked around it - they don't bother me as long as we don't surprise each other.
 
When I was a kid, we spent several years overseas. One of the places I lived was Ghana, West Africa. It has a multitude of deadly, poisonous snakes there. Usually you find them out in the bush. Where we lived was a compound surrounded by a six foot concrete fence so you didn't normally have to worry too much about varmints around the house. I and a couple of friends were playing soldiers with toy guns, think I was about 9 years old at the time. I came hauling ass around the corner of the back of the house and almost stepped on a black mamba sunning itself on a concrete step. I looked at it, it looked at me and we both shot off in opposite directions. Figured the best thing to do was tell my dad. He looked at me like I was nuts, but he got a machete and went looking for it. He figured if I really had seen one around the house, one of the dogs would probably get bit. Pretty much you get bit by one of those, you die. Shortly. I have no idea to this day how he saw that snake, but it was in a bush next to the outside stairs, right by where everyone comes out of the house. He killed the snake and threw both parts out into the road by our front gate. One of the handy things there is the local clean up crew, consisting of pretty good sized vultures, that will take care of anything dead in about a couple of minutes.
 
For some reason I can handle snakes better than spiders but tring to hit those Black Widows with a khukuri requires better aim than I have. I usually just get a couple of legs.
 
You want a spider story, Uncle. I got two.

1) Went down to Turlock and stayed overnight with my cousin. He brought a rollaway in from the garage and set it up. 2AM in the morning I felt something walk right over my heart and brushed it of. Then I lay there and it occurred to me I'd really felt something get brushed off. Instant alert and I levitated out of bed. Lights on, and glasses. Big fat black widow on the pillow next to where my ear had been. A couple seconds later my cousin came out to see what the noise was about, and he saw me pounding the pillow with the heel of my engineer boots.

2) While I was working at the foot of Geiger Grade
I spotted a humongous black widow on the shop's back wall. The abdomen was bigger than my thumbnail. It was 10 - 12 feet high, so I couldn't swat it. Pointed it out to the boss's kid. He said he'd take care of it. Fortunately he had a National Match 45 that was accurate enough to do the job. Boss never did notice the 45 caliber hole.
 
I think my fear and aversion to spiders is the result of hearing about the kid in Cherokee, KS who died from Black Widow bites he suffered while sitting on a nest of them who had taken up housekeeping under the seat of the ourdoor charpi.

They give me the willies. I'll take a friendly old copperhead or rattler any day.
 
We have Brown Fiddlers in KY. i'd never heard of them before moving here. The bite causes a septic sore, that, when finally healed, leaves a scar the size of a silver dollar and over 1/8" deep. That is also a .45 cal. bug :barf:
 
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