Which do you all prefer to wear afield in the warmer months, snake-proof boots or snake-proof gaiters? I have used rubber snake-proof boots that are great in the spring when it's rainy because they double as mud boots. In the summer and fall I prefer lighter boots, but venomous snakes are still somewhat of a concern when traversing thickets and fairly thick undergrowth. I think snake-proof gaiters are ok, but it can get hot beneath them as the day warms up. I'd like to to try some leather or leather/cordura type of snake proof boots, but I don't want any with heavy insulation. I'm curious as to which type of venomous snake protection some of you all use. Which boots or combination do you prefer?
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Which Do You Prefer, Snake-Proof Boots of Snake-Proof Gaiters?
- Thread starter Ezana4CE
- Start date
Springtime we use rubber boots, which are heavy and hot. That’s the trade off.
Summer and fall it’s generic gaiters from Cabelas. Hot like all gaiters. Better than snakebit. It’s always hot in spring and summer anyway so the added misery is negligible
Life is all about trade offs. Risk vs reward.
Summer and fall it’s generic gaiters from Cabelas. Hot like all gaiters. Better than snakebit. It’s always hot in spring and summer anyway so the added misery is negligible
Life is all about trade offs. Risk vs reward.
Gaiters, easy to slip off when your in a safe area to cool your legs down a little in hot weather.
Surveyed in Florida for over a decade. Brutal job.... Dealt with water moccasins, eastern diamondbacks and copperheads daily. You know it's a shitty environment when you're actually glad the snake you see is a rattlesnake. I have a size 17 shoe so I could never find snake boots in my size, so I always wore the gaiters. Everyone else I worked with had legit snake boots. Both are hot, but who cares? I doubt wherever you are will be hotter than 115° heat index like those Florida swamps. For the record we saw snakes several times a day, every day. Only saw one actual snake bite in all those years. A very young and tiny diamondback bit a fellow surveyor on the tip of his snake boot by the toes. His fangs got stuck in the boot, but the boot worked. I always wished I could have had the boots instead of the gaiters.
I stepped on a rattlesnake, it didn't make a sound.
It bit right through a hunting boot, with two fang holes and blood streaming out of the holes. Tightened up the boots laces and calmly drove as fast as I could to medical help, 2.5 hrs on unimproved dirt roads.
You have that feeling that you might actually die today...but no use panicking about it, keep your heart rate low.
I survived the bite but a purplish/ black strip about a foot long and 1.25" wide rotted out of the side of my leg.
I got some tall horse hide boots after that but was fortunate not to have them actually tested on a real snake bite.
Since this one didn't rattle, and it happens fairly often.
It tried to kill me, for no reason, if given a chance I would have side stepped it.
So...I got pissed off, and went back and killed everyone of these sons of bitches.
It bit right through a hunting boot, with two fang holes and blood streaming out of the holes. Tightened up the boots laces and calmly drove as fast as I could to medical help, 2.5 hrs on unimproved dirt roads.
You have that feeling that you might actually die today...but no use panicking about it, keep your heart rate low.
I survived the bite but a purplish/ black strip about a foot long and 1.25" wide rotted out of the side of my leg.
I got some tall horse hide boots after that but was fortunate not to have them actually tested on a real snake bite.
Since this one didn't rattle, and it happens fairly often.
It tried to kill me, for no reason, if given a chance I would have side stepped it.
So...I got pissed off, and went back and killed everyone of these sons of bitches.
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You're probably between 170-200 pounds stepping on an animal that weighs about 3 pounds on average. As far as it's concerned, you tried to kill it for "no reason". Taking it as some pre-meditated personal unprovoked attack on you is odd.
Yes, I stepped on it...but it's has all the senses to know I'm getting too close... hear, feel, see, heat sensors.
They know when a mouse, bird, or squirrel, is running around on the ground. ...but it never rattled, nor did it zip back under the rocks, before I put my foot down...neither I nor the snake knew where that foot would land, on the next step...but I'd be very close, with no way for it to miss a strike, which can happen, but rare.
(I witnessed one missed my dad's foot as we were walking, it was concealed in the brush, it never rattled either.)
But I was already in striking distance the last step before, and it didn't rattle, which means it was in predator mode, laying in ambush, ready to kill.
They are stealthily ambush hunters, and concealed well in their environments...they own the area they live in.
And one does not go around stepping on rattlesnakes just to be mean to the animals...on purpose. They will kill you.
I have zero sympathy for snakes, I violently kill everyone I see, with extreme prejudice, by any means available...to exterminate them from my area on this earth.
Once bitten...is more than enough.
Do not trust a dead rattlesnake, to be completely dead, control the head, unless severed from the body.
I wasn’t able to find snake boots that fit my feet well and were comfortable so I went with the chaps. I also liked the fact I could use my normal work boots with the chaps or without depending on what I was doing. It’s nice to be able to pull the chaps off when you’re running around on the tractor for hours, much more comfortable.
