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Peartree

Looking to be a big year for snakes

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Not even summer yet and the snakes are coming out of the woodwork. Spotted or moved 10 in the last 5 days.

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That one is non-poisonous. Why bother with it?

 

I remove copperheads totally.

 

Rocco

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I work at a large retreat/meeting center and we have a lot of guests that absolutely lose their minds when they see them. I just take them out of and away from the buildings and relocate them to a less populated part of the property. That way they don't get hurt and the guests don't freak out. Especially when they are in the process of eating a baby bird, like one I came across yesterday.

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I enjoy seeing snakes in the wild PROVIDED I see them first! Startling them scares the bejeezus out of me and tends to result in little dark spots on the front o' me waders. :) Fortunately Michigan has only one venomous snake (the Massasauga Rattlesnake), and they're very rare in my part of the state.

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Had one of those almost wet myself moments last week. I was in a utility closet standing on a ladder shutting off a valve, my daughter happened to be standing behind me. She says, hey Daddy there's a snake on the pipe. Me, what pipe? She says, the one beside your head. Sure enough, there's a 5' black rat snake coiled up around the pipe right next to my head and hand. I slowly stepped off the ladder, and he slipped right back into the wall the pipe was coming out of. Took me a minute or two to compose myself.

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I was fishing a brackish river in south Mississippi and saw a water moccasin in the water right in front of me. He just sat there for a while and then swam on upstream. About an hour later, I had wandered upstream and started wondering where that snake ended up. All of a sudden, something out of the corner of my eye shot at my leg and I fell backwards over all my gear. When I got my composure back, I saw a damn frog and realized there was a snag on my jeans that had frayed white strings hanging out. The frog thought he was getting a bug and I thought I was dead.

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Looks like it is going to be a good year for snakes even here in Michigan as well. Normally I may see a snake or two over the course of the year fishing, but this year I already saw (almost stepped on) two of them. First one was probably the biggest Garter snake I have ever seen in my life. Had to be a solid 30" and thick around in the center as my wrist. Never seen such a heavy Garter snake before. 2nd one was right on the edge of the river and I almost stepped on him. He jumped in the water and swam off soon as I moved my foot. Not entirely sure of the species he was but I think maybe some sort of fox snake maybe?

 

Also looks to be a big year for ticks ph34r.png I had three of them on me from the trip the other day. Two of them where just crawling on me and no big deal. One last night was on my side and had bite into me and had to pulled him out with my "tick tool" I carry on my vest. That one left a pretty good mark that bleed. No signs of rash/bulls eye around it though so thats good, but the little bugger sure had a set of jaws on him to make me bleed like thatmad.gif

 

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I'm thinking it's a "Corn Snake".

 

Ugh ... ticks. Disgusting, sneaky little blood suckers. I'd almost rather be swarmed by mosquitoes than to find a bloated tick on me.

A good reason to fish from a boat more often than traipsing through the underbrush.

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I don't think we have corn snakes here in Michigan. Could be wrong, but I've never seen it listed as a species here.

 

I'm with ya on ticks. I friggin HATE them little SOB's! Once you have one then for the rest of the day any little itch you are freeking out and scratching yelling "get off me!" even if its just my cat rubbing my leg laugh.png laugh.png

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We have had several rattlers at the lake this year, normally get only 2 or 3 that we know about for the entire season but have had numerous sightings and its only June. Couple were pretty aggressive (due to idiots teasing them). Keep animal control a little busy.

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Here's a new one to me. Came across one yesterday, then another one today. Dekays Brown snake I think. About 12" long, pick it up and it doesn't move or try to get away, relocated to the woods where no one will step on him.

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Steve, looks like a young Northern Water Snake. Harmless except to minnows and small creatures.

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northern water snake was my call also, but I'm not expert either- just seem to recall fox and corn snakes as being orangish

 

@Peartree, you just taught me something; I never heard "Dekay's" in conjunction with northern nor midlands brown snakes and now I find the subspecies are no longer recognized. My daughter who works for the Conservation was just yesterday trying to convince me that the "northern" I had seen was more likely a "midlands". It was the largest I've ever seen at about 13 1/2".

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