A Reddit user said the worst hunting scare of his life did not involve a bear, a hog, or another hunter. It happened in a swamp before daylight while he was trying to get set up in a tree. According to his comment in the thread, he had waded in chest-deep with his climber and was standing on the little strip of dry ground around the base of the tree, getting ready to head up, when he heard splashing behind him. At first he figured it was probably just a fish or some normal swamp movement. Then he turned around and saw what was making the noise. It was a cottonmouth, and it was coming directly toward him.
He said the snake was not just drifting by on the water. It was swimming straight for the tree he was standing on. That was bad enough. But what made the situation worse was where he was and what he had to work with. He was already in a swamp, already chest-deep on the walk in, balancing gear, standing at the base of a tree before daylight, and now had a venomous snake closing in on the only little patch of footing he had. He wrote that the whole thing forced him into a fast decision. Instead of trying to deal with the snake on the ground, he started climbing the tree as fast as he could.
According to the comment, he got only about six feet up when the snake made it to the tree. Then it started coming up after him.
That was the part that turned the whole story from “bad snake encounter” into “nightmare.” He wrote that the cottonmouth climbed about three feet up the trunk before he finally managed to knock it off with the barrel of his rifle. So for at least a few seconds, he was partway up a tree in the dark, in a swamp, with a venomous snake literally following him up the same trunk. He did not write it like a guy trying to sound tough. He summed it up in a way that sounded a lot more honest, basically saying he nearly “shit” himself and was not too proud to admit it.
The rest of the thread filled in just enough context to make the picture even easier to feel. Other people chimed in saying cottonmouths can be weirdly aggressive and that swamp hunts can get ugly fast in the dark when you are already focused on getting into position instead of watching the water behind you. But the original hunter did not need a bunch of extra help telling the story. The core of it was already rough enough on its own: chest-deep swamp, predawn climb, splash behind him, turn around, cottonmouth swimming right at the tree, quick climb, and then the snake actually climbing after him until he knocked it off with his rifle barrel.
He kept it short, but there is enough there to picture every bad second of it. He was not in a boat. He was not safely in a stand already. He was at the point in the hunt where you are most exposed — still getting into place, still managing gear, still mostly in the dark — and the thing moving toward him was not some harmless water snake. It was a cottonmouth coming to the tree, then following him onto it. That is the kind of encounter that can ruin your nerves for every swamp hunt after it.
What do you think — if you were halfway up a tree before daylight and a cottonmouth started climbing up after you from the swamp below, would you be able to think clearly enough to knock it off, or would panic hit first?
Original Reddit post: What’s your scariest experience while hunting?
