Snakes on board!

[Quint4]

Ongoing problem. Snakes on the boat. I have not found one inside yet but they love to hang out on the transom, gunnels , etc. I am in NC and the boat stays in the water at my dock. Water moccasins and Copperheads are a concern.
How the hell do I keep them off the boat!!

 

[FootballFan]

I would be on the verge of abandoning ship. I hate snakes with a passion.

 

[northshore]

...How the hell do I keep them off the boat!!

View attachment 161473

Find out what they really like to eat and put a shitload of it on your dock neighbors boats

 

[Brent Nutting]

I would be on the verge of abandoning ship. I hate snakes with a passion.

Me too!!!!!!!!

 

[Quint4]

You guys are great....lol

 

[blaster]

Snake away works well around our chicken coop. Mothballs also seem to keep the snakes away.

 

[Woody]

Last summer my wife started hollering for me, she was in the kitchen....up on the counter was a real big garter snake. I grabbed the snake and let it go at the edge of the lawn.

She wanted me to 'do something' about it, I told her to make sure she shuts the door.

There are things supposedly that keep snakes away, I've never tried any. I doubt they work much better than mouse repellents.

We don't have any poisonous snakes in our area, if we did I'd be trying everything

 

[SeasNT]

You guys are great....lol

This is a common sight around the marina until mid summer. Mothballs seem to deter, if you can stand the smell. We've had at least one in the salon, found some shed skin on the floor. Never did find the snake. A neighbor found one in the head medicine cabinet. Almost had the sell the boat. We're lucky, the most common snake here is non poisonous. The Lake Erie water snake was on the endangered list for decades until a researcher at Ohio State's Stone Lab, at Put-In-Bay, discovered the snake loves eating many of the invasive species that have found their way into the lake. The snake population has exploded and her efforts lead to the snake being removed from the endangered list.

 

[northshore]

This is a common sight around the marina until mid summer. Mothballs seem to deter, if you can stand the smell. We've had at least one in the salon, found some shed skin on the floor. Never did find the snake. A neighbor found one in the head medicine cabinet. Almost had the sell the boat. We're lucky, the most common snake here is non poisonous. The Lake Erie water snake was on the endangered list for decades until a researcher at Ohio State's Stone Lab, at Put-In-Bay, discovered the snake loves eating many of the invasive species that have found their way into the lake. The snake population has exploded and her efforts lead to the snake being removed from the endangered list.

And if you have never seen the episode of Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe where he works with the Ohio State University extension up at the Lake Erie Islands and gets bit by the snakes about a thousand times - it's great!

 

[dmorris800]

No he just needs Samuel L Jackson...maybe he just does planes though

 

[PlayDate]

I tried to post this earlier but the website was stuck in a loop again.



Wow. That is a nightmare. The only thing I heard they don't like is mothballs. Something about the smell that the snakes hate.

Allegedly they don't like ultrasonic sounds but it sounds like you have the perfect "lab" to test it.

I get water moccasins climbing up to sun themselves. How are copperheads getting on the boat?

 

[Skybolt]

Yep, same here, water moccasins as well, never saw one enter a boat though. Usually just see them swimming around the marina.

 

[Skybolt]

Them black sumabiches swimming around the marina freak me out. This year i will be carrying my new BB pistol. 16 semiautomatic shots. Hate snakes.

They don't bother me so much on land but, I don't like water snakes though. So I get your dislike.

 

[highslice]

Ongoing problem. Snakes on the boat. I have not found one inside yet but they love to hang out on the transom, gunnels , etc. I am in NC and the boat stays in the water at my dock. Water moccasins and Copperheads are a concern.
How the hell do I keep them off the boat!!

View attachment 161473

Get a pet mongoose? We have tons of water moccasins on our lake, but I have never seen one get on a boat. We did have one try once. We were in the middle of the lake, about a mile from any shore, and a little one approached the boat. But it couldn't overcome the height of the swim platform.

I hate snakes.

 

[BillK2632]

Snake away helps. We used to have them on our dock and seawall, especially in the early spring, generally like to sun themselves. As the weather got warmer they move away from the sun. The snake in your picture is an Eastern Water snake (I am in Central NC), big, fat and they will bite but not poisonous. Those are what you usually see around water around here. I would not rule out a copperhead or water moccasin encounter though. I bet a sprinkling of snake away on your swim platform will do it -- they hate the smell of moth balls.
Either way you gotta fix this -- my admiral would not go near the boat if she thought a snake could be on it!

 

[Creekwood]

Moderators, please delete this thread immediately. I have told my wife that snakes will never go on a boat. If she sees that picture or hears that they can get on the boat, I'll never be able to get her back on board. Its bad enough that the eastern water snakes are in pretty much every cove we anchor in. My wife loves to swim off the boat. But one snake sighting or "rumored" sighting, and she won't go in the water.

 

[Soulshine]

My wife won’t go in the garden shed because I told her that I saw a snake in there once. 20 years ago, so I can’t imagine how she’d react to this.

I was helping my dock neighbor work on his boat a few years ago when he encountered a snake in the EC. He was pretty well squeezed in there to begin with and freaked out. He caught every sharp edge and hit his head on everything there was on the way out.

I didn’t know what happened until it was over. It took all of two seconds.

They don’t bother me but I don’t want them on the boat or in the house.

 

[Windjammer]

One got into our lake house, maybe 14 or 15 years ago (I think one of the dogs caught it and brought it inside). I was at work at the time and I imagine there was a "swath" of piss 4 fingers wide going outside when my wife "discovered"this. She probably also embarrased all the Olympic Sprinters in the process of getting outside (feets don't fail me now)!

 

[scrumper]

Holy shit. Never again will I be jealous of freshwater boaters' easy maintenance.

That said... I found rodent paw prints and a small puddle of stinky piss in my cockpit a couple of seasons ago. Installed a motion-activated light and never saw any further signs since; a snake would also have solved that problem handily.

 

[Maggieiscrazy]

Holy shit. Never again will I be jealous of freshwater boaters' easy maintenance.

That said... I found rodent paw prints and a small puddle of stinky piss in my cockpit a couple of seasons ago. Installed a motion-activated light and never saw any further signs since; a snake would also have solved that problem handily.

I’d rather have snakes than rodents.