Accotink Copperhead

[TurbineBlade]

While jogging around my 3.2 mile loop this afternoon I stumbled upon a 3', very pretty Copperhead slowly making his way across the path. I literally waited for like 8 full minutes hoping a biker or jogger would pass and would be willing to snap a picture for me, but no one passed!  ARGGGHHHHH!  (I don't carry a phone while jogging)

That's the 1st one I've seen since I left Missouri in 2007.  

I can live for a week on a snake sighting like that!  Wow!  

So Accotink has enough wooded habitat to support Copperheads y'all.  

Gene

[Scott Stankus]

I think you lucked out. Any jogger or biker who came across a sweaty guy holding a snake 3' snake in the woods would have screamed, ran the other way and called to police long before you could have even said, "Excuse me..."

Still, I would like to have seen a photo of the snake!

--Scott

Sent from my iPhone

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[TurbineBlade]

Oh, I don't hold the venomous ones without tools -- that's a no-no, despite television programs.  I did, however, watch him slowly move toward a chain link fence and then touch his tail lightly with a twig when he was 2/3 of the way through.  In typical pit viper fashion, he froze in place for several minutes after that.  I thought I might buy some time to get a passerby to come along, but no luck.  So I gave up and finished my run with great vigor!  

They're by far my favorite snake species.  

If I get a pic of one, I'll put it up here so the 6 members interested in non-fish wildlife can enjoy it ;).  

Gene

On Thursday, October 13, 2016 at 6:31:32 PM UTC-4, Scott S wrote:

I think you lucked out. Any jogger or biker who came across a sweaty guy holding a snake 3' snake in the woods would have screamed, ran the other way and called to police long before you could have even said, "Excuse me..."

Still, I would like to have seen a photo of the snake!

--Scott

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 13, 2016, at 4:50 PM, TurbineBlade <doubl...@gmail.com> wrote:

While jogging around my 3.2 mile loop this afternoon I stumbled upon a 3', very pretty Copperhead slowly making his way across the path. I literally waited for like 8 full minutes hoping a biker or jogger would pass and would be willing to snap a picture for me, but no one passed!  ARGGGHHHHH!  (I don't carry a phone while jogging)

That's the 1st one I've seen since I left Missouri in 2007.  

I can live for a week on a snake sighting like that!  Wow!  

So Accotink has enough wooded habitat to support Copperheads y'all.  

Gene

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[John Smith]

That's a very cool sighting. I've only encountered one CH in this area and that was probably over 30 years ago on the canal towpath near the Billy Goat Trail. Prettiest snake I've ever seen. 

[TurbineBlade]

They really are -- I completely agree.  I was caught completely off-guard by it, thinking it was first a large stick, then a black rat snake, and then "wow, yeah, that's definitely a Copperhead".  I really wish I had my cell phone on me, because my own reaction when folks say "there are copperheads over there" (or something) is that I'd like to confirm it with my own eyes first ;).  I may not see another one for...who knows how long? Ugh.  

The real lesson here is "Accotink is full of copperheads", and they're waiting in the leaf litter to bite fly fishermen chasing stocked trout.  They're highly aggressive, and chase people and fall out of trees on you.  Happens all the time!  Lol.  

Gene

[Miles]

[sigh]... Water snake.

Ha ha - I troll. You might be the only person on this forum I'd believe without a photo.

While I fully endorse the no-venomous-snakes-without-tools rule, I have a long story on the subject. When I was a Boy Scout, we went to a summer camp in the Blue Ridge every other summer. One year, I signed up for a wilderness survival camp-out, led by this college kid named Ken. All the Scouts thought Ken was hardcore because he was a big guy and wore overalls with no shirt or, we assumed, underwear.

We hiked to the wilderness area, and were told to go into the woods to gather materials to build a shelter. I noticed a pile of rough-cut boards in the middle of the clearing. I was like, 'sweet, this shelter is going to rock'. I lifted up a board and saw right away the pattern of a copperhead nestled in the boards. I yelled, "Copperhead", and the adults - including my dad/Scoutmaster - came running.

They made sure the kids were thirty yards away or so, and called for the camp's snake guy. He drove in 15 minutes later - so much for 'wilderness' - and the adults started very carefully lifting boards so the snake guy could get a lasso pole around the snake's neck. He lifted it out of the boards, and this thing was big.

It was so big that the snake guy couldn't control it with the lasso pole. It started wiggling loose. My dad, who used to be the snake guy at a tourist-trap zoo in south Florida, stepped up and grabbed the snake with his hands, just as it got loose from the lasso. I could hear the other adults gasp when he picked it up. Dad - who is not prone to hyperbole - says the thing was maybe 36" long, which is about as big as they get.

Unbeknownst to my dad, Ken the survival guy had walked around behind my dad, about six feet away. When my dad started to lose control of the copperhead, he turned around and threw it behind him - right at Ken.

This dude jumped from standing still as far as I have seen a human being jump, outside of the Olympics - and he did it backwards. And once he landed, he was gone - just disappeared from the scene. Ken, it turns out, was terrified of snakes.

The other adults were by this point completely tired of Ken's no-shirt tough-guy BS, so for the rest of the week we had grownups coming up to my dad and saying things like, "By God - if this place sold beer, I'd buy you one". They'd clap him on the back and laugh their asses off about dad throwing that snake at Ken.

They thought he did it on purpose. Dad swears he had no idea Ken was back there.

[Scott Stankus]

That is hilarious! Good story, Miles!

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"There are 10 types of people in this world, those who know binary, and those who don't"

[namfos]

Terrific Boys Scout story!

Mark

[namfos]

And they guard the Turbine Blades honey holes.

[tperkins]

Gene, 

Saw this the other day and thought of you

: 

[TurbineBlade]

Could there be a 3rd option titled "DRACULA"?  You could borrow the fang marks from the VENOMOUS bit, and just leave a cape on the ground or something. 

Every time I lumber past that spot on the trial I look for another one, but he never appears.  Man I wish I had a camera.....

Gene