Well, NC is a "different bag of snakes"!! First step might be to identify what you have. According to: North Carolina's Coop Extension (http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/gaston/Pests/reptiles/watersnakes.htm) Of the 37 species of snakes throughout North Carolina, only six are venomous: Copperhead (found throughout NC) Canebrake Rattlesnake (found throughout NC) Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake (found in southeastern NC) Pigmy Rattlesnake (found in southeastern NC) Cottonmouth or Water Moccasin (found in wetland areas in the eastern half of NC) Coral Snake (the rarest, found in the south and southeastern areas of NC) Hopefully you are splashing around in the northwestern part of NC - fewer poisonous snakes! The site below, Snakes of North Carolina, has good pictures of the snakes you will find there. Good luck and stay safe! Anne Here is a link that might be useful: Snakes of North Carolina

Dorothy, We have huge timber rattlers like that here on our property and they scare me to death. Once somebody ran over one and killed it in the road right by our mailbox. All day long people stopped to look at the huge size of that sucker, and you could even hear them hollering comments (I was in the garden 100' away from the road) like "Dang! That's a big snake!" Finally someone stopped and picked it up. They asked if I minded if they took it. Ha! I was tired of looking at it and was glad to see it go. Last year we came back from a fire on a 110 or 112 degree day when not a creature was stirring in the head and found a big timber rattler lying in the driveway. I guess it was sunning itself, and I said to Tim "Is it not hot enough for that thing without the reflected heat from the driveway?" Due to its proximity to the house, he was going to shoot it but by the time we parked and were out of the car it had disappeared. We have an unpleasant encounter with a big timber rattler the size of the one you described at least twice a year, and sometimes 4 or 5 times a year. There is a dense woodland between our house and the nearest house to our south, and the timber rattlers always seem to come out of that area. Although we have western diamondback rattlers and copperheads in the garden fairly often, I've never seen a timber rattler there and I think it is because the holes in the fence are too small for them to squeeze through. And, for whatever reason, I most often encounter pygmy rattlers in one specific area of the woodland and rarely see them any place else. I have a long list in my brain of areas coded "do not enter" in summertime because of frequent snake encounters in those areas. The farther west you go from our house and towards the river, the heavier the snake population. The far back part of the property near the western fence line is so full of copperheads that I do not go back there for any reason whatsoever during snake season. Our next-door neighbor was bitten on or near her ankle by a copperhead a few years ago. She got immediate medical attention but had a lot of trouble with her leg for quite some time. She couldn't walk and had to be in a wheelchair for maybe a month. It does seem like the swelling lasted a long time. I know that snakes are an important part of the ecosystem and we'd be overrun with rodents were it not for the snakes, but I hate it when they are lurking in the yard or garden. We try to keep the area up around the house, garage, and gardens snake-free, but ignore the ones that roam the rest of our acreage. We have 14.4 acres and we don't shoot snakes on roughly 13 of those acres. However, despite the fact that they control rodents and are very helpful in that regard, I still don't like them and never will. Dawn

Wow that is a nasty bite. I was thinking about this (people not realizing they were bitten) and there are some people who have neuropathy (nerve damage) from diabetes or other diseases that might not realize they were bitten if a lot of venom wasn't injected for whatever reason. They might not feel the initial pain of the bite but the effects of the venom as they became ill. I got bit by a brown recluse spider one time and didn't know I was bit until the ulcer showed up. I don't have any reason for getting an ulcer on my leg and I was young and healthy. Then I remembered seeing the recluse spider when I was moving some boxes in our basement. Luckily it healed okay. It is common not to feel recluse bites though. Some people are allergic or get infections from them though and that's when the trouble starts. ~sjn

Ok - Here is how I recieved my first snake bit (for those curious) I knew it was going to happen (even before I stuck my hand in the aquarium). A friend of mine ran a apartment complex in Georgia. He had found a Red Tail Boa in a apartment that had escaped, and the owner had been evicted. He took it home, put it in a 10 gallon aquarium, the snake was a good 5' or more. He had crammed the tank full of towels, and put in a hot rock, and had a 150W light bulb shining in the poor snakes face 24 hours a day (for warmth he said) He added a coffee cup of water for the snake to drink out of - and of course - the snake had tipped it over. David, while his intentions were good - he was afraid of the snake. He had not fed it, and it was "not happy" I knew that I was going to get nailed before I even put my hand in the tank to remove the wet towels, and clean up the water. The snake did exactly what I expected him to do. He struck me, and wrapped my arm very quickly. I stood there (my daughter watching) with a snake stuck to my arm. I gently pryed his mouth from my arm - and after cleaning the cage, returned him to it. I made sure not to even cringe - as I did not want my daughter to develop a fear of snakes! I never made a sound, and I think my calmness helped both me, the snake, and my daughter. I told Richard and his elderly mother that the snake needed to be with someone familiar with handeling snakes (I had grown up with boa's because my brother had one when I was a little girl) They sold me the snake, I put it on a plane to Texas, took it to my brother - who then placed it with a person who handles boa's and takes them to schools as a part of a teaching program. I have a fondness of snakes, and would hate to kill it unless it poses a danger to our lives. My snake bite was expected, thankfully I do not meet any of the "reasons that people get snake bitten" - but thanks for posting - because I think you are exactly correct. Most (but not all) snake bites are due to stupidity - many of the others are probably just due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We almost stepped on that poor snake in my images before we noticed it. Its only defense would have been to strike - this would have just been - being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thank goodness for all of us - our situation ended up ok. I will just have to keep a closer eye out before I go treading through my garden. RT