Blasted on the homestead.

[xdpatriot]

I just killed a cottonmouth in the back yard. My daughters (not so useless anymore) potlicking dog had it stopped in the open. That's a new one on me. I've had rattlers but never a cottonmouth. Be careful folks. I thank God we found it before the kids. It was heading for the garden.

[1Admin]

Killed one that was living under a little plastic pond a couple weeks back. Darn thing only stuck it's head out just a bit past the stones we have there. I didn't think the chances were great but I took the shot. It fell back under and some blades of grass moved back and forth for a while. I figured it was a kill but I wasn't too quick to find out. It started stinking a few days later.

They aren't any joke.

[Rmplstlskn]

Cottonmouth's are one of many things I do not miss from my decades in Florida... What is so wierd to me here in VA, even still, is that when we do freshwater recreation activities, I don't have to worry about alligators or cottonmouths... We just swim and have fun... Wierd!

Oh, and Palmetto Bugs too... Don't miss those either...

Rmpl

[motesjm]

Cottonmouths are mean critters. They don't run and they don't warn. At least with a rattler he's trying to tell to to back the heck up.

I shot a big rattlesnake crossing the driveway last week. It's definitely season for watching your feet. Makes me a little reluctant to wade through the tall grass on some parts of the property.

[thedreamers]

to help keep them (and many others) away from around the house you can put granular sulfur down. its an old country thing the blacks n farmers came up with back in the day and is still used today. the snake away you buy in the store is the samething but doesn't go far. find a local fertilizer store an ask for a bag of tiger90 sulfur. its cheap and is also good for the yard. we also use mothballs under the sheds n house.

[xdpatriot]

Yeah, we've got mothballs in the garden

[Benn Gleck]

Don't see any Cottonmouths but Copperheads are bad here.

[rockriver]

did it again.
at another house . my co workers kept asking.. " how are the snakes" and i kept saying. "no snakes" till one day. a great huge multi colored snake started crawling down the path toward a relative and the snake got lead poisoning and was fed to the fish...
i advised the co workers, who properly cussed me as i had killed a king snake, bigger than any they had seen.
today, coming home for lunch, i found black snake with whitish circles every couple of inches down his body.
i don't like snakes. and ran over him a couple of times.. dead snake. this is an area the wife
is working on fruit trees etc..
i got on internet and checked. shoot. different kind of king snake... eastern different coloring.
i got to learn my snakes better.
rr

[Matt In Oklahoma]

Things like this wash in brush pile, old mattress', under logs, rock ledges, small caves, under heavy foliage, lying on branches above waterways where moist air flows and pretty much any place that is cooler than the outside air to assist them in regulating body temps is the place to avoid, remove or look depending on what you are doing. Snakes taste good so while watching out for them you should make a mental note of where you found them and why for PAW foraging. Some argue that chasing food down that can potentially kill you is foolhardy and I agree but if you are in a bad way and there is a chicken or a cottonmouth then of course eat the chicken, common sense should prevail.
Keeping our places in order isn't just for aesthetics it's for safety from these critters.

https://www.survivalandpreparednessforum.com/showthread.php?4198-Handgun-Rat-Shot