Anyone been bit by a rattlesnake in back country?

[BuckWild41]

LOVE the info in this thread. Would it be possible to have contributors to this thread state what state they are encountering these encounters/bites?

Thanks in advance

 

[Btaylor]

Lots of good stuff here. Been bitten twice by tmbr . rattlers and 1 dog bitten. Dog got a full wet bite and died about 14 hrs. later. My first bite was in the forearm ,it was a wet bite, my arm swelled to the size of my upper leg. My breathing was a little off and my body would not listen to my mind. Like being falling down drunk in your body and sober in your mind. Second bite was pretty much dry . Best advice I can give is stay current on your tetnus shots, you get in way more trouble there most of the time.

What were the circumstances that lead to getting bit on the forearm?

 

[Danomite]

I've had many encounters and have a mason jar full of rattles, but have never been bitten. I know 3 people who have and each occurred more than 30 minutes from a hospital. All survived. One of them was my childhood friend who was bitten on the calf when we were about 7. He nearly died and still has a big scar. He was bitten in a barn. One of the others was bitten on the butt when he bent down to do his business. The other was bitten on the leg in a pen while branding. Growing up, most of my dogs were bitten and a couple died, usually because they were bitten near the neck and suffocated. This is all prairie rattlers and a couple diamondbacks. A funny but mean trick my coworkers and I used to do is to put a coiled snake under a truck door (after cutting its head off).

 

[Tbonespop]

This from Denver Health on Rattle Snake bites what to do, it says NO medication should be given to the victim. Seen this from other health care websites as well.

https://www.denverhealth.org/blog/2017/01/rattlesnake-bite-prevention Wanted to stick with facts and to Colorado

Benadryl is for the potential allergic reactions that lead to difficulty breathing so you don't suffocate on the way to the hospital. Its not for the bite itself. I keep benadryl in all my packs - works for spider and scorpion bites too - in terms of risk of allergic reaction. I don't take it unless I need to, obviously. And I wouldn't take it for a snake bite unless I felt like I was having an allergic reaction that impacted my breathing ability.

Also, best to stay hydrated with water or something like pedialite (not any alcohol or anything like that).

Aside from staying hydrated and having Benadryl for potential allergic reactions, just get to the hospital ASAP

 

[Tbonespop]

There is a distinct demographic of the majority of rattle snake bite victims here in Arizona. Male, 20-40 years old, bites on the hand are most common, and the victims usually have alcohol in their system. Sure accidents happen (hikers, MTB, hunters, etc), but unforced errors are dumb.

 

[mcr-85]

This idiot is not me. This seems like the perfect way to get bit though.

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[Tbonespop]

Also wanted to mention that rattlesnakes tend to be "low strikers" as in they strike near the boot or calf, definitely lower parts of the leg. Not sure "chaps" are needed. My son and I wear snake gators that go up to just under the knee when hunting. I have had a few rattlers strike at my boots, but that was because I was messing with them (which I do not recommend). Haven't done that since becoming a little more mature....

Be careful where you put your hands when climbing hills and mountain terrain.

 

[Pony Soldier]

My life has been pretty snakeless. But -- during a geologic field camp one of the students was kinda chunky and kept sitting down on every rock all of the way up the hill. Near the top of the ridge as he started to sit down a rattlesnake struck him in the butt. Instead of striking flesh, the snake hit him in the wallet and the fangs stuck. As he jumped up the snake wrapped around his leg.

Suddenly he started to scream and took off for the truck almost a mile away. Everytime he jumped a rock, the snake would wrap tighter and he would scream. Everyone could see and hear him all the way to the bottom where he jumped a four strand barbwire. Someplace on the trip the snake fell off. But for the rest of the time on the outcrop he stayed very close to the instuctor and he never sat down on a rock for the rest of the class.

 

[StevenB]

My life has been pretty snakeless. But -- during a geologic field camp one of the students was kinda chunky and kept sitting down on every rock all of the way up the hill. Near the top of the ridge as he started to sit down a rattlesnake struck him in the butt. Instead of striking flesh, the snake hit him in the wallet and the fangs stuck. As he jumped up the snake wrapped around his leg.

Suddenly he started to scream and took off for the truck almost a mile away. Everytime he jumped a rock, the snake would wrap tighter and he would scream. Everyone could see and hear him all the way to the bottom where he jumped a four strand barbwire. Someplace on the trip the snake fell off. But for the rest of the time on the outcrop he stayed very close to the instuctor and he never sat down on a rock for the rest of the class.

That’s a happy ending. The snake sounds like he had a ride of a lifetim.

 

[DawnPatrol]

Lot of people on here with a lot of close contact with rattlers … but very few bites and even fewer bad outcomes. Makes me feel silly for worrying about them, but I’ll admit they freak me out a bit when they surprise me.

I took a wilderness first aid course a while back. The instructor basically said, if you get bit by a rattler: stay calm, hydrate, avoid physical exertion, do NOT apply a tourniquet, and get to the hospital. You may be in for a bad couple days, but adult humans almost never die of rattle snake bites.

I’ve encountered a fair number of rattlers (mostly Westerns here in Oregon) and never had any try to bite me, even when I’ve nearly stepped on them.

One took a whack at my buddy’s foot while hiking in the Grand Ronde canyon—a very snakey place as Oregon goes. It struck his heavy leather hunting boot (Danner, I believe) and didn’t make it through. I’m pretty confident a boot like a kenetrek or crispy would stop one.

 

[huck]

What were the circumstances that lead to getting bit on the forearm?

Once in the crawl space under my house. Once climbing a rock face 400 yd. from my house. Lots of snakes back then. 15 to 25 a year within a mile of the house wasnt a big deal .

 

[ccc9092]

I'll never forget going through a whole box of 12 gauge shells as a kid on cottonmouths. This was during the early wood duck season in Tennessee on the Big Sandy near Paris, TN. I've never been to a place with that many cottonmouths.

 

[Turkeygetpwnd38]

I'll never forget going through a whole box of 12 gauge shells as a kid on cottonmouths. This was during the early wood duck season in Tennessee on the Big Sandy near Paris, TN. I've never been to a place with that many cottonmouths.

Haha yea I’ve dealt with them up there and about every river bottom/swamp in West TN. I’ve ran out of shells while brushing blinds and had to use boat paddles.

 

[FlyGuy]

I have a very vivid memory of a snake encounter from my late teens. This was in Louisiana at our deer lease. It was summer, I believe, and my dad and I were there with the tractor grading roads, bush-hogging and disking plots as I recall. My dad was working a pretty big field and it was hot so I started wondering around down in this little creek drainage. It was only 4-6 foot wide, very small, but fed a much larger creek a few hundred yards away. I was down in the sandy bottom and had been standing very still when I heard the absolutely unmistakable sound of a snake slither through the dry leaves and enter the shallow water about 5-7 yards behind me. That is a creepy, creepy sound. I had a pistol with me, a 40 cal Glock, which I slowly and slowly turned around to see a large water moccasin stretched out with its head up. It was a tough shot to make to make at that distance with a pistol, but It seemed aware of me so I didn’t think I could close the distance without spooking it and losing it. I took careful aim and squeezed off a round. The bullet struck the snake but it didn’t kill it. It probably took a chunk out the snake but the shot wasn’t immediately lethal. The snake coiled up for a brief second and then took off towards the cover of an overhanging root ball of a tree growing on the edge of the bank just a few feet away.

Everything else happened fast…. In this section the banks on each side of this little creek were quite high and steep. The cut bank of the creek was maybe knee to hip high, then above that Each side sloped up at 40-60° and crested out 20’ or so above the sandy bottom - like a long V cut with a 3’ channel dug out of the bottom.

I didn’t want that snake to get away so I took off running towards it thru that creek bottom hoping to get another shot at it. I may have made it 2-3 steps when I realized there were cottonmouths EVERYWHERE! The ground all around me seemed to be alive and moving. Snakes were bolting away 360°. I’m pretty sure I shrieked like an 8 year old girl. I completely unloaded that pistol firing off in multiple directions. I don’t know how many there were. Seemed like 20+, maybe it was 10? I can’t say for sure but it was not at all what I was expecting. I only hit and killed one of them. It was a small one, probably 12” long? For many years I thought I must have stumbled onto a “breeding ball” that I’d heard stories of. Later I thought maybe that was a nest of relatively young snakes, as none of them were anywhere near the size of the 1st one I’d shot at.

Anyway, i was out of ammo and I now had to figure out how the Hell I was going to get out of that damn hole I was in knowing there were pissed off cotton mouths in every direction. I bet it took me an hour to make my way out as I was jumpy as Hell and every black stick I’d see would give me a panic attack. Haha!


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[Mojave Kid]

I hunt the high desert in California and have had many close encounters with Jake the Snake but no cigar. I always worry about my bird dog getting bit and we're waiting to do snake avoidance training on him. My Vet told me that he has handled multiple rattler bites on dogs but he has never seen or heard of a dog dying from a bite. When I was stationed at Ft Hood 1981-82, i heard of a soldier who had got into his sleeping bag and zipped up, a snake had gotten into the bag and after getting bit once he freaked out and got bit many more times. By the time his buddies unzipped the bag and tried to help, the poor kid was done. I don't know if it was a rattler or cottonmouth.

 

[manitou1]

Some of our encounters from last year here in WY. First one was right outside my house door. I had been walking in and out of that door all afternoon. He was laying under a board on my yard drag next to the shop door. Finally rattled at me on my seventh trip out the door while installing porch lighting.

 

[FLATHEAD]

I remember, as a kid bank fishing with my Dad.
It was on the backwaters of a reservoir and
absolutely covered up with Cottonmouths.
Had to keep your head on a swivel as they would
come right up on you. Kept a pile of rocks on the
bank to chunk at em, cause more than once we
would bring in the stringer, and one would
be trying to swallow the fish while its on the stringer.
I've had em try to get in the boat with me, and actually
come out of the water, chasing me more than once.
All Cottonmouths die.

 

[Tod osier]

Need some more pics in here...

Missouri river breaks. We were bird hunting and he stuck his head into a little scruff of bush when walking at heel. Was back at it in a couple days, but it was a scary drive out to Malta to get to a vet.

 

[VizslaHunt]

https://forums.bowsite.com/tf/bgforums/thread.cfm?threadid=477900&forum=36

I was with my son on a few day hiking trip just a few miles from where this guy got bit last summer. We kept to the paths and didn’t see any rattlesnakes, but there are a lot of them around there. I bought an inreach after talking to locals on that trip.

 

[OregonSteeler]

Found a baby rattler in our washing machine many years ago while living in Tucson, AZ. Our first house had a detached shed with our washer and dyer in it (weird setup). My wife opened up the washer door and the baby rattler was curled around the top portion under the lid. When she opened it up, the rattler raised it's body and my wife dropped the lid on it so half was in the washer still and half was outside the lid, scrambling like crazy to get out. I was inside. She was so freaking scared she couldn't even speak when she came to get me. She just looked at me with eyes as big as saucers and barely got out snake. Once I was able to figure out what was going on, I went out the shed, found it and killed it. I normally don't like to kill snakes; been around them all my life. But that one had to die. It was living in a small wood pile outside the shed.

I fish the Deschutes and John Day Rivers here in Oregon quite often. In the warm months we run into quite a few rattlers. All of them have been docile enough to not strike but been buzzed quite a few times.

My buddy went to get something on his raft at night on a 3 day trip on the Deschutes. He jumped on his raft and heard rattling but couldn't see where it was. He called me over quite frantic to help shine the light around so he could get back inside his tent. Not fun hearing a buzzing rattler and not knowing where it was. Rattlers love the higher grass near the water. They are always, and I mean always on the back of my mind as you need to walk through knee to chest high grass to get from one spot to another for fly fishing (you can't fish from a boat on the Deschutes).

During the salmon fly hatch a couple years ago I was walking up from the river to a gravel road over a big rocky area. As I was jumping off rock to rock making my way uphill, I look down and see one of the fattest rattlesnakes I've encountered and nearly stepped on it. It was curled up and starting to go down a hole in the rocks. Completely caught me by surprise. I must've covered 50ft high stepping back down to the river. Once I settled down, I look over and my buddy is nearly on the ground laughing. He looked at me and says "you scream like a little girl".....and yes I did!

Did a 3 day camp trip on the Deschutes for a different salmon fly trip. The first 2 days it was 100+ degrees and unbearably hot and sunny. Never saw a rattler. The third day was much cooler and overcast; though still warm as it was mid to late June. I saw 6 rattlers while fishing and buzzed by 4 of them in probably less than 4 hours. It was crazy. We fished most of the day but after so many encounters, it just wasn't fun anymore. I just kept on worrying on when I'll run into another rattler.

No significant stories from the John Day River except we see 1-2 of them a year. Sometimes there will be one hanging around the public crappers which always makes for some fun stories and screams! LOL


I was a kid playing at our river property on the Susquehanna in PA. My Dad was cutting up some wood and my Grandma was just sitting on a grassy knoll under a huge tree just watching the river go by as Grandmothers do. My Dad stops suddenly and call my Grandma over. She goes over and he points to under her lawn chair. There was a 6ft black snake making it's way right between where my Grandmother's legs would've been.

Snakes...don't love em, don't hate em, just another animal in the wilderness. Thankfully they don't kill everything that invades THEIR space.