gary reeder
years ago I was bitten by a snake. I was visiting my parents
Wednesday, February 02, 2022, 22:37

at their home in the country outside Nashville. I worked at a radio station in Clarksville about an hours drive away and the station did a lot of radio station stuff on the weekends so I was busy most of the time. Dad had plans to go fishing so I said I would join him. In their back yard they had a big tree that was covered with Catalpa worms. They were stuck to the leaves, to the trunk and everywhere. Most of the live ones were up in the tree. The tree was maybe 50 feet tall with huge limbs. It took a small box to keep live crickets in and climbed the tree. I was crawling along a big fat limb as fat as my thigh. As I got out toward the end of the limb right in front of me was a huge King Snake or Bull Snake. Dark grey in color and as big around as my wrist. I had always heard that they wouldn't bite as long as you didn't strike at them, so I reached out to push the snake off the limb I was on. As I touched him he grabbed the web of my hand between the thumb and forefinger and started shaking his head. I knew it wasn't poisonous but at the same time I wasn't in the mood to dance with him. I pulled him off the limb and figured if I hung him over the ground he would drop off, maybe 10 feet below. My Dad had seen all this and when I looked to make sure I didn't drop the snake on him, he was already 40 yards away at a hard run headed to the house. Later he told me he was going to get the water hose and make the snake let go.
The snake kept shaking his head like he was trying to shake me off instead of the other way around. I thought about grabbing him around the neck and breaking his neck but they were good at keeping Copperheads away from the house. plus his whole body was already wrapped around my arm up to my arm pit. He was a good 6 feet long and probably weighed 20 lbs.
I reached out with my other hand while trying to keep my balance on the tree limb. I thumped him on top of his head and it worked. He let go and hit the ground with a loud thump. My hand was bleeding pretty good so I climbed down the tree and in the minute or two it took me to get out of the tree the snake was gone. Never saw him again but I bet he had a good story to tell his buddies. The hand was sore for a couple of weeks but I had no other effects of the bite.

Here is another tale about snakes that should help you sleep good tonight.
My dad and I hunted and fished together constantly. One time we went fishing at a big lake owned by a church that allowed us to fish there for $5 each. Dad had a little john boat with a 9 horse Evinrude and we had been fishing for large mouth bass and big bluegill. We saw an older fellow working the edges of the lake flipping a spinner lure up under a bunch of willows for bedding bass. A little later we noticed his small Glaspar boat was just turning slow circles near the bank. We didn't see the old man and thought maybe he had fallen in. We started the motor and went over to the boat that had grounded by this time. The old man was in the boat lying flat on his back and a huge fat cotton mouth was coiled up on the old man's chest. The old fellow was obviously dead and his head was swollen up big time and there were 2 small holes in his forehead that obviously came from the snake. The old fellows spinning rig was still in the boat and the line was still tangled in the willows. He apparently snagged his lure in the willows and reached into the willows to untangle it. The cotton mouth was doing what a lot of them do. They lay or hang up in the willows waiting for something to grab, maybe a small bird. But of the 25 minutes or so from the time the snake bit the guy in the forehead and the time the boat grounded at the bank his head had swollen up considerably and turned a dark grey. There were some folks fishing from the bank so we called them over to help us get the snake off the old guy. It was like the snake said "I killed him so he is mine". He hissed at us showing that pure white interior of his mouth whenever we got near the boat. Finally a young man came by with an oar from his boat and swatted the snake a few times until he left, slithering off the boat into the water looking for another victim. The church closed the lake for fishing after that and it ruined a great fishing spot, snakes not withstanding.