… if you ever rode over here … you’d likely be sexually assaulted by a cottonmouth while an armadillo rooted it on

…..cottonmouths eat live deer and steal old people’s social security checks in these parts

… but with all that being said

…. If you ever see me tangling with a cottonmouth… you better jump in and help that snake

…. Cottonmouths around here have been known to take down grown brahmer bulls and rob liquor stores

… cottonmouths are designated as a terrorist organization east of the pecos river

… I once saw a cottonmouth burn an American flag while stealing a poor kids lunch money

Got a cottonmouth story.

A guy and his wife were wading in the James River above me 10 miles or so. Guy got out knee deep in the river and got bit twice by a cottonmouth.
They never figured out if he had been bit by one snake or two. Anyway, guy hobbles out of the water and the wife helps him in the car and they go home. He was on parole and pharmaceuticly enhanced at the time so didn't want to go to the emergency room. Also, they didn't have insurance. So,he went and took a nap and didn't wake up.




Below is out of the Missouri Conservationist:

Cottonmouths live in southern Missouri

As the weather warms up, many snakes will be moving about, and in southern Missouri, cottonmouths can be found along streams, ponds and lakes. Cottonmouth bites are rare in Missouri, but a Nixa man died in 2015 after having been bitten twice by a suspected cottonmouth while wading in the James River.

A toxicology report later determined the man also had a potentially lethal level of the narcotic Oxycodone in his blood at the time of his death.

The Missouri Department of Conservation notes that harmless and nonvenomous water snakes are often mistaken for venomous cottonmouths.

Our first quail hunt this year (Nov) we had a dog tangle up with 2 Cottonmouths. He was bit 3 times. He was back hunting in January. It was a rough few days at the beginning, but he made it.
All I know is it hit hard. I drug him off the snakes and in less than a minute I was having to help him to the wagon. We met the managers wife halfway and she was going to transport him to the vet. In just a few minutes time I had to carry him from the wagon to the truck. The vet had to carry him from the truck to the office.
What’s even crazier is the Summer before he got bit on the head by a baby Cottonmouth that made it into his kennel and was just given some Benadryl. Apparently head bites are better for a dog than leg/body bites even though his head swole up twice its normal size. Since he has a thing for snakes he’s now designated a late season dog vs early season, lol!

Had a neighbor back in the 70's who got bit by a cottonmouth while bowfishing.....Layed him up for a while but he recovered well, and soon got to stirring and started clearing out a thicket near his home.....Got bit by a copperhead!

Tough neighborhood, Lol.

Here ya go mike.

We used to be covered up with cottonmouths. Below is one at my basement door. Then the alligators got thick and the snakes, beavers, and nutrias basically disappeared.

My sons used the work the rice fields here in Arkansas. You learn to spot them real quick when handling levee gates!

That’s a bigun!

I live in Benton and have been told this is where the old landfill is located. It's part of the Clark's River National Wildlife Refuge now. I grew up in this area and cottonmouths are a part of daily life here.

That's true Pappy T....My grandparents lived up over the hill from the old S curve, not far from Boyce Claytons place.

The Briensburg & Benton kids used to tromp all over back in there hunting, fishing, frog gigging....Can't believe none of them were bit, or at least never heard of anyone getting bit.

That camo is no good!

Thanks Ack

Note the look on her face, she has always had a phobia about snakes. When she said she had to to get a picture of her holding it up, I couldn’t believe it.

She found a garter snake in a slop boot once. Thought it was a stick in her boot and dumped it on the floor, screamed, grabbed a hammer, and turned that snake into a grease spot on the basement floor.

Our cottonmouths aren't black like that. I think we have the Eastern aka Florida variety. Some of them have a really bright and colorful pattern.

I found this on the a-z-animals site.



"Also known as Florida cottonmouths, eastern cottonmouths are venomous pit vipers indigenous to the southeast regions of the United States. They are typically near the Florida Peninsula and Georgia. They are highly distributed in Florida, including the upper Keys and extreme southeastern Georgia, but spread into other parts of Georgia, southeastern Virginia, and the Carolinas. Some say the Florida cottonmouth is distinct from the eastern cottonmouth. However, their territories blend as well as their characteristics."

I see them pretty often hunting in the N 1/3 of Mo, up to Alton, Ill and the Mo/Miss river confluence.