Snakes

[coinshooter]

O.K., I will be doing some hunting near Fredricksburg, VA this June and have to admit that all this talk of snakes in the other post has kind of freaked me out. I used to go to my relatives house and wander out the back of their yard into the forest with no thoughts of snakes, but now you all have gotten me wondering about Copperheads and Water Moccasins.
Is VA a place that is known for these snakes and if so, what do you do if you get bit by one of these? I know what to do for a west coast rattlesnake, but I am not sure what to do for one of these snakes. Is there anti-venin, how much time do you have to make it to a hospital, etc. I don't want to be paranoid, just prepared if I run across such a snake.
Besides this I am looking forward to it. 8)

 

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i live just west of san antonio a couple hours. a friend of mine has inlaws in lampasas. hes also a whites dealer.

 

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[W4UVV]

When I worked at Ft. Hood in 1972-1974 I lived in Lampasas Co. just outside of Copperas Cove off
FM 5637(?) in a subdivision called Allen Estates. I was one of the first to build in that subdivision. Two years later my job was transferred to Ft. Lee, Va. My mailing address was Kemper. I could be in Austin faster than going to Killeen. Being a ham radio operator I learned about a surplus store in Lampasas that I used to visit occasionally. At that time I had no metal detector and was interested in looking for early Indian relics. I remember finding what must been a quarry on a mesa top in the county north of the road to Lampasas. Looking back now it was foolish for me to go alone to some of the places I went to. But I found some early artifacts of interest and never had any snake or scorpion problems. The only rattlesnake I saw while in Texas was at my neighbors across the road. He foolishly left a child's sliide unassembled laying in the yard and a baby rattlesnake used it as his home. My neiighbor got quite a surprise. Baby rattlesnakes are born fully loaded with venom. He tried to catch it in a jar. That didn't work. A shovel strike separating his head from his body worked fine. The other snake I saw was in a scrap lumber pile next to my house that at the time was being built. My 9MM German Walters pistol took care of him. My biggest problems were scorpions. I spread a yellow dust like chemical, which of course now is banned by the federal govt., all around my house and inside my garage.

I remember one day looking at the light globe in my utility room and saw a dead baby scorpion. I have no idea how he got there. One day outside I turned over a log and a mother scorpion and about 50 babies were with her. I killed alll of them. One of the scariest times was when I was mowing the yard and did not know I had mowed across a bee's nest. I barely was able to get inside the house without getting more than a few beestings. That happened to me twice. The second time it was a nest of big black ones. They were really mad. I quickly abandoned my self propelled lawnmower than they tried to sting and again retreated with only a few stings. Later when things settled down I used 2 cans of Raid on the nest. Texas is tough. All animals and insects are designed for survival.

Prior to locating in Texas I could not remember the last time I had a flat tire. I had three on different occasions at my house building site. There was a thorn tree that punctured my tires. I learned very quickly what to avoid. One of the most physically painful things that happened to me was when I accidently hit the tip of a Spanish sword plant with my thumb. I thought my thumb was going to have to be amputated. The material was fiberous and almost impossible to pull out with tweezers. The constant pain was almost unbearable.

Smart people in Texas never leave their home doors open or go barefoot.

But I liked that part of Texas and I liked the weather, lifestyle and cost of living. I didn't care for the huge metro areas of Dallas and Houston or the remoteness of El Paso.