Critters to look out for?

[Batch]

They usually will slither off. I have had a couple of weird encounters. One time when I was fishing from the bank. I looked down and one was part way out of the water a few feet from my foot. He was just staring at me. I poked him with my fishing pole and he went back in the water.

Another time we were fishing from my jon boat with only a trolling motor. The battery died and so we started dragging the boat from shore. While one of us held the boat off of the bank with the one oar we had. As we got to a tree that blocked us we would pass the rope around to the other guy and switch positions. My friend reached around with the rope and I walked around to grab it. He says, "That looks real." I look down to see a big water moccasin stretched out right by my foot. I moved back and the snake turned and went into the water.

Why someone would think a snake by the bank of a lake was a fake one, I don't know. But, he's from New Jersey if that explains anything. LOL

In Big Cypress water moccasins are everywhere. Wear boots and watch where you put your hands. We run into them on the trail all the time and they will strike our vehicles when we run by them. Can't really blame them.

This one hit the footrest just as they came around the curve. Right where her foot was.

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It stayed in a defensive posture until we got off the quads and moved closer and then it took off into the undergrowth.

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[Justin Case]

Thanks for the Pics thats a pretty big snake (thick)

[Batch]

That's smaller than average. Here is a video taken in the same area of Manny handling a moccasin and then a non-venomous water snake towards the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG2kX3sZeWA

I love when he says this is the savage wild. That's how people react when we take them out there. Sometimes we forget that so many people never get to see this part of South Florida and we'll say we didn't really see anything this trip. They always ask if we are kidding them, cause they saw things that they never thought they would see that close and wild.

[2dumb2kwit]

Somebody on a local forum just posted another trail cam pic of a panther, moutain lion/ cougar, etc. in Michigan. It happens every year and they always turn out to be a black cat, or taken from some other part of the world. Supposedly this one's real.

I've come close to being bit by a michigan rattler hunting mushrooms. They seem to like the same places shrooms do. I actually brought a snake in the house which was balled up and hid inside a hen of the woods mushroom. I had it in a paper bag, reach inside to pull it out on the kitchen counter and felt something wiggling. I think if I was hunting shrooms in Florida or Georgia, australia, etc. I'd already be dead.

Wow....I had no idea, they hunted mushrooms! LOL

[2dumb2kwit]

Do the water moccasins tend to slither off if you give em warning or do they stand their ground, or come at you?

Around here, the ones that I see.....It seems like they stand their ground, on dry ground, but tend to come at you, if their in the water.

Mean, nasty things, they are!

[NightShade]

I live in mass.. So... What Ken said!
I travel a lot to northern n.h. And Maine... So.. What Camp said!
I'm on the lookout mostly for 2 legged predators..
And more than anything .. Ticks! I hate them... My blood is gourmet tick food.. I am always pulling ticks off of me while in the bush..
I have been diagnosed with Lyme's disease on 4 seperate ocassions.. Trust me when I say it is a horrible thing to have happen to you!

[Batch]

I know I joked about the threats animals pose. I mean I have stepped on monster gators and been prey like in way to many points. We are not a natural food source for any thing.

The guys that are worrying about ticks and skeeters are correct in that they are the greatest threat.

[rwc1969]

The ticks worry me, but I sure wouldn't want to run into a WM. My grandpa swore they used to be up here, but I don't know.

2D, I typed that wrong. It was supposed to say "I've come close to being bit by a Michigan rattler hunting mushroom".

BTW, I was out in the bush today and feel like I still got ticks crawling all over me. All I saw was bees and a lot of rattler hunting mushrooms.

[your_comforting_company]

It's the things that you can't see that are the most dangerous. Red bugs, mosquitos, moccasins, rattlers, gators if you're near the swamps. I've been chased out of the water by moccasins before.. not a fun feeling. Chased out of a pond a few weeks ago by a gator that was at least 15 feet long.. every time he went under, he'd come up closer to our 10' john boat, and parallel with it like he was sizing us up to see if he could take us. We left!
I've had a huge bobcat, or cougar or something like that come real close to me in the woods while hunting a bottom near a creek this past season. Still not as dangerous as that cottonmouth that you DIDN'T see.
A walking stick is a necessity around here. any old stick will do, but should be strong enough to bash the low-growth brush where the snakes are hiding. Much easier to see when they are moving...

[rwc1969]

I was tracking a deer a couple years back. It was a not so good shot, no fault of my own, and the deer ran far thru the woods, a field, two swamps, and two thickets. I tracked it about 1/4 mile until it was midnight and as I moved I could hear something following me. I decided to leave and come back in the morning with light so I could see. At 6 or 7 in the morning I found the doe and it had been caught up to by some yotes.

I had to wonder if it was the yotes I heard and maybe we were both on the same trail. It was a real eerie feeling because I was pretty much crawling on my belly and such thru the sticks the night before, with no gun, just a maglite and my Buck knife.

[finallyME]

Up here?

Anything rabid - rare, but there are some.

Coyotes, porcupines, skunks, spiders and ticks top my list on land. Of course, there are the often present mosquitos, bees, wasps, hornets and rare but annoying black fly.

In the water, I keep an eye out for sharks (yeah, lots of sightings here lately), schools of blues, jelly fish, and Portuguese men of war.

I'm probably more concerned about the antisocial two-legged critters than any of the rest.

True story. When I was about 18, I went fishing with a next door neighbor off of Warren's Point on the Rhode Island coast. The man, about 45 years old at the time, did a lot of commercial fishing as well as fishing for his freezers - alone - from a 23' open boat. We had landed over 600 lbs. of tautog (some folks call 'em "blackfish") using rod and reel and decided to do a bit of snorkling and spearfishing. Well, the swells were pretty nasty, over 6', and I was back on the boat in about 10 minutes, but he just kept on going. (I'm still impressed to this day.)

After he was in the water for about 30 minutes, he swam back toward the boat, and looked like he was having a problem. I was ready to go back in when he told me to stay in the boat. When he got back aboard, he was COVERED with Portuguese men of war and he must have been stung several hundred times.

I used a rag and pliers to pull most of the pieces off of him, and told him to relax while I brought the boat back to Westport. Hell no. He was doing the driving. We got the boat back on the trailer, drove back home, and filleted or cleaned all 600 lbs. of fish. He was still covered with tentacles and tiny bits of that damn man of war. When we were done cleaning the fish AND washing the boat, he asked his wife to pull out the tentacles (stingers) that he was still covered with.

To this day, I don't know if he had tremendous fortitude or was just crazy, but I don't think I could have done that.

Ken is lucky, his state is a lot safer now.
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But, the one on the left is still alive, so Mass is still a pretty scary place to live.
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[Rick]

I guess I was thinking a bit larger when I posted. Everyone is spot on about the mosquitoes and ticks, of course. They are terrible disease vectors around here. The other two you have to watch out for are the brown recluse and black widow spiders.

[Ken]

Alligators. I've gotta' add Massachusetts alligators to my list.

This year:

http://www.necn.com/07/23/10/Alligat...87&feedID=4206

Last year:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/bre...ong_allig.html

[crashdive123]

We had two shark attacks last weekend. I guess those can be added to Rick's list.

[Rick]

Already on it. Along with a host of other water "things" you can't see until it's too dang late.

[huskymill]

in houghton all we have to worry about are skunks, black flys(in the summer), ticks, chinnese foriegn exchange students who pick up the skunks thinking they are cats, and i guess you really dont want to get too close to porcupines.

[Ken]

.....chinnese foriegn exchange students who pick up the skunks thinking they are cats.....

Either way, your take-out order will be ready in 5 minutes.

[CoyoteBC]

Nothing dangerous in my neck of the woods just ask PETA and friends

[Batch]

Death from water moccasin bites is almost non-existent. A fraction of percent. That is with no treatment at all. Add that to the FACT that they are not the aggressive snake everyone makes them out to be.

Here is a recent study that I thought I posted earlier. It is only 2 1/2 pages of easy reading.

http://pk.b5z.net/i/u/2179965/i/Cott...Aggression.pdf

[Beans]

oh man, Lots of stuff, bees, wasps, skeeters, widows, recluse, scorpion, tarantula ,rattlesnake, badger, gila monster, and I am sure theres a few i cant think of right now,,

We have several different species of Rattlesnakes here, but i "Believe" its the only dangerous snakes,,

Justin you forgot about the Black bears, They just removed one from a tree in Sierra Vista and AZ Wildlife had to kill one By Parker Canyon lake that was too aggressive.