# I got in a fight with a Cotton Mouth.



## Oldcountryboy (Feb 23, 2008)

I've always heard that they can be very aggressive and of all the cottonmouths I've been close by has never came after me like this one did.

A few days ago, last Friday, I went to the river that's close by my house to do a little swimming, fishing, and girl watching :heh:. Well I had baited up with a artificial crank bait and swam across the river to some log jams. I fished and made my way about a 1/4 mile down stream. I did flush one cotton mouth off the bank and he/she kept it distance from me. It would swim down a little ways and soon I would catch up and then it would swim a little futher on down stream. No problem so long as it keeps on swimming away! 

Well I got downstream aways to a shallow spot and decided to cross back over and made my way up to where I had my lawn chair and ice chest. I sat down and ate a bit of lunch and then tied a new lure on my line. I got up and walked about 50 feet upstream, still on the bank, and started casting my line out and retrieve it. 

Suddenly I catch a movement across the river from me and noticed a snake entering the water. Immediately I recognized it was a cottom mouth snake. It was heading right directly toward me. I thought "well it will probably turn upstream or downstream here in a moment". Well the darn thing kept heading straight my way. Next thing I know it is almost to the bank I'm standing on. I stepped back a few feet and started waving my arms, thinking maybe the snake just doesn't see me. The snake reaches the bank and coils up and starts striking at me. 

Well now, this just made every hair on my body stand up and I thought "Oh yea!" Then the rocks started flying everywhere. At about a hundred rocks thrown at it, I think I hit it twice! Didn't do much damage to the snake but he/she got the message and high tailed it out of there. 

Well I went back the next evening and didn't see anymore cottonmouths, which was good cause I was a bit scared to fish around the log jams.


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## Darren (May 10, 2002)

Wasn't that the reason snake charmers were invented?


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## Chief Cook (Apr 24, 2011)

Glad your alright! What is it with snakes right now? I had a bull snake get into the entrance room the other day. He fell off the coat rack and into a bucket! When I saw it I did kinda FREAK. I got the door open and tossed bucket and snake outside. That nasty dadburn thing came right back at me!!!! I grabbed a broom and the fight was ON. Twice we had to stop and catch our breath. He kept striking and I kept sweeping and scooping. It took awhile, but in the end the snake was out side the yard. I spent the rest of the day jumping at every little sound in this old house! At least my snake wasn't poisonous. They sure can be unnerving. Stay safe!


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## poppy (Feb 21, 2008)

It's a good idea to keep a pistol in your tackle box. An old beat up 22 that still shoots is good enough.


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## OkieDavid (Jan 15, 2007)

I've had female cottonmouth's do that shortly after giving birth. Since they have live births, I always figured they were defending their young. Quite common here in S.E. part of the state.


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## Nature_Lover (Feb 6, 2005)

Here's another way to handle a moccasin...

An American folk tale:

Boudreaux been fish'n down by de bayou all day and he done run outta night crawlers. He be bout reddy to leave when he seen a snake wif a big frog in his mouf. He knowed dat dem big bass fish like dem frogs, so he decided to steal dat froggie.

Dat snake, he be a cotton mouf water moccasin, so he had to be real careful or he'd git bit. He snuk up behin' dat snake and grabbed him roun de haid. Dat ole snake din't lak dat one bit. He squirmed and wrap hisself roun Boudreaux's arm try'n to git hisself free. But Boudreaux, he had a real good grip on his haid, yeh.

Well, Boudreaux pried his mouf open and got de frog and puts it in his bait can. Now, Boudreaux knows dat ha cain't let go dat snake or he's gonna bite him good, but he had a plan. He reach into de back pocket of his bibs and pulls out a pint of moonshine likker. He pour some drops into de snake's mouf. Well, dat snake's eyeballs kinda roll back in his haid and his body go limp. Wit dat, Boudreaux toss dat snake into de bayou. Den he goes back to fishin'.

A while later Boudreaux dun feel sumpin' tappin' on his barefoot toe. He look down and dare wuz dat water moccasin wif two more frogs.


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## no1butcherman (Sep 6, 2007)

Meah, dats da troot ya! Dat dun happen to me.


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## Oldcountryboy (Feb 23, 2008)

Nature Lover, loved that little story there. I'll just have to make sure I always carry a pint of wiskey with me from now on. 



OkieDavid said:


> I've had female cottonmouth's do that shortly after giving birth. Since they have live births, I always figured they were defending their young. Quite common here in S.E. part of the state.


OkieDavid, I was thinking the same thing. But wonder why it didn't come after me the first time?


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## Oldcountryboy (Feb 23, 2008)

Double post!


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## DryHeat (Nov 11, 2010)

When I was in high school in central Florida then college in NC, I was very interested in wildlife, herpetology in particular, zoology major in college, doing several decent field work research projects. In Florida, I'd occasionally run across cottonmouths and would always give them as close a look as possible. Probably saw 30 or 40 total, and never ever saw any aggressive behavior at all, actually not even any of the "cotton-mouth" behavior of opening the mouth and wiggling fangs at you or whatever. I noticed that a prominent researcher at U of Florida had described the ones from central Florida as a distinct subspecies, even, partly based on observations of this rather "mellow" behavior, possibly something like that of copperheads. 

I moved off to NC well aware of the general lore of cottonmouths as dangerously aggressive, especially the more western subspecies west of the Mississippi, but from my direct experience sort of wondered if the "stories" weren't rather wildly exaggerated if not outright made-up for the critter in the eastern part of its range, at least. Then one day in the late 60s, a grad student buddy and myself made a little daytrip during a spring drought to some river swamps in SE NC.. Waccama River drainage, Lumber River, that area. Saw a large water pool next to the secondary state highway we were on, just connected to a tributary stream crossing the road under a bridge, decided to look the area over. Looked "snakey" and that's what we were looking for, one of us with a golf-club hook and the other with a nice Pilstrom tongs clamp stick. Tromped down along the bank with the usual collection of a few tangled mono lines and leaders and busted bamboo poles here and there, then out into knee-deep very dark water in this pool (surrounding cypress areas bone dry). About three feet from a vine-covered log, a surreal little white cottonmouth mouth popped out of the green, striking outwards several times, fangs extended, then the two-foot or so long snake sort of bounced outwards into the water, dove under, and vanished. Another one about three feet long swirled around the end of a log further away, looked around, then likewise ducked under the water. Then another visible on a log ducking around in vines, then another on dry ground at the side of the pool, then another 3-footer slides off a log into the water maybe fifteen feet away, ducks under, surfaces at ten feet coming towards us, gaping its mouth open snapping a couple times fangs extended, ducks under vanishing and surfaces *again* five feet away, wiggling fangs again, my buddy clamping it at that point with the tongs as I see more motion behind us as another one starts approaching swimming on the surface. We wound up for a moment back-to-back catching and bagging several of them more to simplify the situation than for any real purpose other than to withdraw in an organized fashion. This wasn't a very large pool at all, nor deep, but there were something like a dozen cottonmouths in it all told (no frogs, no fish, no harmless snakes) and they were not amused by our presence.

This was the only time in a number of encounter-interactions with snakes in the wild that I've edged over into feeling out of control and even just a tad "at risk."


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## Oldcountryboy (Feb 23, 2008)

DryHeat, I would have looked like Jesus running across the top of the water to get away from that many cottonmouths!


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## Forestdude (Jun 9, 2012)

I ain't no snake fan, and I leave most of them be, but carving out my new homestead in a Louisiana bottomland, I found my place was overrun with cottonmouths. It's about the only type of snake I see here around the house. They don't scare me, but after finding those suckers exploring my yard I went on the offensive. I rarely kill anything that I'm not gonna eat, but cottonmouths are a different story. Well after 4 years of walking the creeks and sloughs and shooting everyone I see, I have had a drastic decline in sightings. I killed over 30 within a couple hundred yards around my house the first year. I've seen less and less every year, though a slight increase in kill count this year at 11 so far (with one in my fruit orchard)...yep, I try to keep count. And there's alot more frogs singing in the evening, I'm just doing them a favor I suppose. My main concern is that my dogs swim in those creeks and they love to play with critters. 

I hear all the stories of cottonmouths being aggressive, but most of the ones I see either sit still or haul butt. Some have appeared to be curious maybe, but never tried to attack me. And yeah, I did upgrade from a .22 with rat shot to the gun shown above, a 20 gauge "tamer". A great small cheap cannon for carrying in the woods, despite the fact that little dude kicks like a mule!


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## Badger (Jun 11, 2010)

Our neighbor down the road was just bit by a copperhead while raking leaves in her yard. She's gonna be OK but I'm getting a bruise on my hip from packin 357


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## sherry in Maine (Nov 22, 2007)

dont like snakes/ when I was a teen we lived in Oklahoma. We would swim in every water hole we could find (you know how kids are- brave/stupid/bullet&snake proof)

we would just splash a little, so the snakes would know we were there, then we'd feel at ease to keep swimming around . . . . .

I have seen some agressive cotton mouths. I dont like snakes. It's a wonder I lived through my teen years. When I was an adult & lived in Md and Va. I saw plenty of snakes, cottonmouth & copperhead and also some agressive black snakes. I was always scared of them. . . . Once, I had my teeny baby on the back yard in the grass in Virginia, my 3 dogs were on the porch, barking barking barking. I said, 'those dogs are jealous!' and I took baby up on the deck, let the dogs go into the yard I'd had her in. . . the dogs ran straight to where we'd been--- and grabbed a young copperhead! I never doubted them again- Star, Heidle and Bear. Good dogs, they . . . .


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## Blackbear (Jan 21, 2012)

Didn't know there were cotton mouths in Oklahoma. I have to travel a few counties east to be in cottonmouth country


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## Oldcountryboy (Feb 23, 2008)

Well I've been back to that fishin/swimmin hole several times since the attack and I haven't seen a cottonmouth since. One night while fishin we did have a common watermocasin try to steal our fish we had on a stringer. I think the dead minnows we had in a bucket was attracting him but he found the fish stringer when he got to us. I gently tossed a rock at it and it quickly swam off.


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## Nature_Lover (Feb 6, 2005)

I caught a copperhead by my porch, she stood her ground, 
this is what she got for thinking it was her ground...

(click a thumbnail)


she had 7 developing eggs inside






the same day I found a baby box turtle


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## reubenT (Feb 28, 2012)

I have had encounters with plenty of them things over the years, a rock or stick or two is the usual projectile, and several times one was all it took. I surprised myself with accuracy a few times. A timber rattler in the hayfield succumbed to one swipe of a rotten stick. A copperhead in the hills saw one rock headed his way, and blanked out. A cottonmouth in Alabama got stoned. That one took a few hits to get gone. And it was quite aggressive. 
I have a rat snake living in my barn, quite welcome. I enjoy having the non toxic mouse grabbers around.


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## Hollowdweller (Jul 13, 2011)

Wow. Great stories. The only snakes we have here are rattlesnakes and copperheads and they are actually fairly docile. 

I have had 3 friends bit by copperheads, one on 2 difft occasions, but nearly all were struck at night walking barefoot in grass and the stepped on them.


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## mplatt4 (Mar 24, 2007)

when I was in HS we all went to a lake on skip day and were swimming and swinging into the lake off a rope. All was well before lunch and after the hotdog roast the first one to swing off the rope landed into a cottonmouth ball and was bit over 200 times. I guess when they breed they all form a huge ball or so the sherif dept told us at the tim. that was the end of my swimming in muddy water lakes


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