Dealing with dangerous camping neighbors

Joined
Apr 2, 2012
Messages
185
Location
Council Bluffs IA
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ST1300
If you are in a camping area, the dangers are highly reduced. Ticks and lime disease are very real. You can check your body and see them...most of the time. They fall from trees. Fire Ants bit and inflame the skin and hurt, but don't endanger the body. I have seen raccoons viscous over food /garbage in trash cans. Chances of a snake, highly unlikely. The biggest danger really is someone drunk setting your tent on fire, or pure stupidity. Definitely take the deet for comfort.
 

W0QNX

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OK Andrew if the tame stories aren't doing it for you I got a couple more.

I used to weekend camp often out of the back of a Civic wagon when I was hang gliding regularly. A local flying hill of mine had a few snakes, sometimes, with rattles. Didn't ever bother me or the rest of the crew until that one time... I got there late, threw out the foam that I carried in back and then the slim sleeping bag as it was Kansas summer and likely 75+ degrees all night.

Got up the next morning and picked up the foam mattress and rattle rattle rattle. Massasauga rattler had crawled under for the night. So from then on the few picnic tables were grabbed fast for us light travelers. True story. Scare you enough yet?

The cool thing about Massasauga rattlers is that they are small at 2 to 2.5 feet fully grown and use a neat method of travel. In the tallgrass plains of Kansas they crawl on the top of the grass, kinda half bent over grass stalks and they slither right along. That year turned out to be a VERY good year for Massasauga rattlers as we saw them regularly all summer and a guy out in the lake even got bit by one that joined him in his little inflatable raft. I came across 4 in one day that summer. We hardly ever saw them before or after that summer in the 18 years I regularly wen there. Wilson Lake near Wilson-Russell Kansas if any needs to know.

Found a road killed western diamondback Rattler just last week about a mile from my house. The thing is rattlers are kinda like bears, they'd rather just go away then bite you if they can get away or scare you away first. Of course the Timber Rattlers over in Eastern Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri are a bit worse They're the ones we find with the bear bells in their poop.!
 
Joined
Aug 11, 2013
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kankakee
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R1200rt
Last year I was heading east on I76 near Sterling Colorado and saw something on the road ahead of me. I switched to the other side of the lane I was in and as I got a few feet away (at70mph) I saw it was a rattlers all coiled up. I was waiting for a strike but it never happened..
 
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Andrew Shadow

Andrew Shadow

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Jan 28, 2012
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Montreal
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Not looking to be scared- just became curious. Someone I work with here in Montreal grew up in Louisiana. They lived in a rural forested area by the water. He said that they were always surrounded by snakes, poisonous spiders and alligators. He said that they had to carry a shot gun with them whenever they went from the house to one of the out buildings at night in case they encountered anything serious like snakes or alligators. This got me to thinking about camping in these conditions. I have traveled these area but have never camped in them- don't tend to be endangered to much by wildlife while on the black-top even if it is back roads. Just curious if it is an issue to be concerned about. My guess was no as a lot of camping goes on in these areas and there are not to many reports of campers being eaten by alligators and such.
 
Joined
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Collierville TN.
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If you camp in the south any where near water watch out for the snake called the Cotton Mouth Moccasin . It is a nasty snake. It will bite for no reason. It is venomous. It will not retreat if you come upon it. They are very territorial. Brown or some times gray black if they have been away from the water. They have a blunt tail and have a heavy body with a large head and they smell bad. You may find them a good distance from the water later in the summer. Stay out of any tall grass near water because they will be there. This snake can mess up your day and then you will dream about him all night. If you mess with it you are going to have to kill it or the next person it encounters will get bitten. Is that bad enough.
 
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