Thank God we only have a few pit vipers (easy to identify) and the Coral Snake to worry about here in the US. You go elsewhere, and there are some pretty nasty snakes. Some of those buggers from Australia give me the shivers. Not that Africa or Asia are that much better. I'm moving to Greenland!

Antarctica, Iceland and Ireland don't have snakes, either. I guess New Zealand didn't have, until people took them there.

Personally, I'd rather live in Ireland. South of the Irish Mason-Dixon Line.

Sue

Even the experts aren't always sure which snakes are which. Particularly if it was a juvenile. Young snakes have different coloration and markings from the adult.

I caught a young snake I couldn't identify and took it to a herpetologist friend of mine who messes with local snakes. He dug out a couple of books and still couldn't tell for sure what it was. He runs a reptile shop and, just to satisfy our curiosity, he kept it and let it grow. A couple of week later it was clearly a rat snake. He offered me $20 dollars to keep it, it was worth more because it had unusual coloration. I busted the snake out of jail and let it go in the woods.

In CT that top snake with the yellow tail, would be called a juvenile copperhead. I remember water mocs as darker, with less patterning, but I haven't seen one of them in ages...

A local guy had a snake climb into the John boat he was in was in. he proceeded to try to shoot the snake with a 10/22 with a large capacity magazine. After twenty or so shots through the bottom, all misses by his account, the boat started sinking.

He was afraid in the boat but terrified having to swim to shore, seeing as the snake would be at eye level, he panicked and dropped the rifle.

He later retrieved the boat and it was usable after extensive patching but lost the rifle in the mud.

Some people just lose all rationality when faced with a snake. I never understood the need to kill snakes. I've killed two or three where I didn't have much choice but have caught and released many times that. And, assuming your forced to kill one, using firearms just doesn't make much sense to me. If you really have to kill a snake use a stick. One good swat and it breaks their back. Then you just work up toward the head. Simple.

Using a firearm is not necessarily a bad idea (especially if an irrational fear of snakes precludes you from being able to be in direct contact with it, even with a stick) but trying to shoot a snake with a .22LR can be a tough shot. I keep a couple of boxes of CCI shot shells on hand (.22LR and 40 S&W) just for snakes, although a 12ga target or bird shot round (#9 shot) is even more effective if noise is not an issue.

Jim

If you must use a gun to kill a snake, buttstoke it. It keeps the dirt out of your barrel. But you'll never shoot it unless you are using shot.