Taz, I' m a little like you. While in grade school I had almost 30 snakes in my back yard, either in cages or in a pit. All were non-poinous, as I only saw one in 45 years in Norther Ill. (A Swamp Rattler).
Acouple summers ago we wer infested with moles in the yard. The grandson and I caught King snakes and put them down the holes. Thinned out the moles. One unusual thing, they would not go down a hole that didn' t have a mole in it, had to find one that did. I think some of them came back for us to repeat the procedure.
Russ

Sounds like a pine snake to me,they love to climb.Also another snake man here,I love to raise rat snakes.

most likely it was a rat snake or pine,both are look alikes,most people call them alll SNAKES.
trimming trees for the power co. I have ran into a lot of rat , and oak snakes in the trees.

I catch rat and oak snakes all the time and trade them to the pet store for Koe fish for my pool.two large fish for one snake.

once I got in a ladder stand,sat there and heard and felt something move under me.[]I didn' t want to move to fast so I moved real slow and found a nest of flying squirrls had eaten a hole in the seat and removed some of the padding.a rat snake had found the hole and was having supper[X(].he was eating one and the others could not get out the hole.
I had to open the seat and get them all out so I could hunt(this was just befor daylight).

Boy you folks have all the fun down south. Up here all we have to worry about are garter-snake and buy the time the cold sets in for hunting season they’re all gone..

I had a squirrl eat a hole in my tree stand seat last season,if I could have found a snake I would have fed it to it.

When Trailer said we have garter snakes, he meant it. There is an area an hour outside our city that is worlds famous( has been in National Geographic and Discovery channel) for it`s garter snakes. There is a pit there that the snakes have been coming to for generations to hybernate. They form into large balls to keep warm as it gets REAL cold up here.In the spring when they come out of hybernation and look for a mate, they sun themselves on rocks to get warm again.
You can go down into these pits and literally be knee deep in these snakes. If you time it right, you can see tens of thousands of them, maybe up to a 100,000. School kids and scientists come from all over to study them. They are completely harmless. A lot of them will loose their lives trying too cross the local highways in search of food when they leave the pits or to the many predators that feed on them. Ever tried picking up a ball of live snakes?[]

Ron

hmmm, my post is missing. well, i guess il re-post

i hate snakes. when i see one, i go out of my way to kill it. i saw one today, i went for the shovel, but it was gone when i returned. which reminds me, what kind of snake roam the southeast pennsylvania area? i thought i left snakes behind when i left california.....

the only good snake is a dead snake, man i hate those things i dunno what it is but i am scared to death of them. ull know if i see one because ill most likely scream and definatly start running the other way

Well first off welcome to the huntingnet[:-] I haven' t hunted from a stand yet but i have had a few run-ins with rattlersnakes out here. The one that stands out in my mind the most was when i was dove hunting. I downed a dove that landed in a field (just weeds, brush, tumbleweeds) so i went to get it and i always take my gun with me. When i found the dove i heard the tale-tail (quite literally) sound of one p' d rattler. I stopped and looked around and saw it about 3 feet away from my left side. Happy for me i had my gun pointing already in its direction so i was able to shoot it without moving. After i jumped back i shot it two more times and i dont know if it was dead or just nerves but it was still moving. I always carry my 7 inch hunting knife that my dad gave to me when hunting. I stood on the back just below the head and cut it off. I pulled it off the ground and it was close to 6 foot which is the biggest rattler i have ever seen. Before i did that other hunters who were further down the canal i was at couldn' t tell what i was doing before i pulled out the snake.

I HATE EM!!! They sure make GORGEOUS boots, belts and hatbands. We used to use the old Loc On chain ons and if you' ve seen them you know they had that sewn fabric seat that was attached to the back by a simple piece of conduit that is open on each end. A couple of years ago one of our buddies ended up BREAK DANCING in his stand during a bowhunt. He was standing there and just happen to look down and noticed what he thought was a lizard sticking its head out of one end of that conduit. Then he realized it was a small snake that he had been sitting on for the morning. He didnt know who was the scaredest, the snake or himself when he went crazy knocking that snake to the ground!

I ALWAYS check my stands (especially shooting houses!). No snakes in nearly 20 years of chasing deer (now turkey season is another story!), but I too had a run-in while using an old Loc On. I was hunting an old river bottom in MS and had a stand about 30' up a big Cypress tree. I went in well before dark and while still standing on the steps below the stand, I pushed back the folded cloth seat and THOUSANDS of dormant wasp fell allover me like rain!!! I couldnt jump and I didnt dare yell, but I cleared that tree of wasps in a real hurry. I dont know what was funnier, that or the realization that hit me about daylight, " What happens when the sun warms up all those wasps" ??? Sunrise found me frantically scanning the ground below with my binoculars. LMAO, but they were no-where to be seen.

Critters,
RA