After the rain, the sun came out and the wife went for a stroll in her garden. She came in and told me about a most fantastically colorful snake down at the base of some steps. It wasn't the least bit disturbed by her presence.Growing up in Florida, I used to hunt for snakes along the Little Wekiva river when I was a kid. My friends and I would walk down the middle of the chilly calf deep river and look for snakes along the banks and in the roots of foliage growing along the banks. We carried old broom sticks that we screwed an eyelet into the end and used wire to make our own snake nooses. We'd catch Brown Water snakes, Banded Water snakes, Green Tree snakes, Indigos, Black Racers, Rat snakes, Scarlet snakes, King snakes, Hognose snakes, Ringnecks, Water Moccasins, and Coral snakes. Oddly, we never ran into any of the various rattle snakes ... I assume they're just not huge fans of the water. We'd see them in the woods but just not around the water.
This was, of course, back when I was young enough to be fearless. Something I seem to have lost with age. One can learn a lot about snakes when hunting them. The Water Moccasin is an unusually irritable snake and it's much faster in the water than you'd like it to be ... trust me on that one. If you see a Coral snake sunning itself on the river bank, you can usually grab him by the tail and toss him in the cold river water. As you followed him down, the water would sap him of his body heat and after a bit you could just pick him up by the tail and put him in the bag.
Generally most snakes flee when they detect a human inside their comfort zone. Often enough, this is before you even see them. If the snake is indifferent, there's a chance it knows something that you don't. Here's a picture of Mr. Indifference ...
Yeah, that's a Coral snake honey. I know he's really pretty, but he's got to go.
A closeup of Mr. Coral Snake's head ... rounded, black tipped, followed by a yellow band. If you're from down South, you may recall the saying "red to yellow, kill a fellow". I'm pretty close to this guy and he's not really all that impressed by me. It was in the high 70's at the time.
I put a few of the CCI 22 Magnum Shotshells in my Smith and Wesson 648 revolver. Mr. Coral snake was initially perforated from about 6' away. Now he's impressed.
He started to bleed from his various perforations just before he got the second round.
That was all the 22 Magnum Shotshell he could stand. Here's Mr. Coral snake on a stick. He was only about 24" but that's about the size of an adult. Now that I have young kids, this is the proper state of a Coral snake in my yard.
Sounds like someone needs to take some kingsnakes out to those islands to clean them up!