With apologies to churches who handle snakes as a witness to faith, I am looking for a tool to relocate black snakes from the kids area to the woods nearby. We have frequent black snake visitors on the playground.

https://beanfarm.com/products/...avy-duty-snake-40-in

With feeble attempts to research, it seems Midwest offers a few solutions.

Any guidance from this august group? I want a tool to be at the door closest to the playground so we can respond and relocate.

When we were kids one of the things we did for fun was catch snakes. By hand. I guess that’s no longer normal.

I’ve used one of these to grab a snake from an inaccessible spot now that I’m old and crippled up. Used gently, it won’t hurt the snake.

https://www.amazon.com/NEWMARK...84276317112596&psc=1

Me & another guy used to go to the snake calls at work. We found the 21” ASP baton is pretty handy at pinning them to the ground while you grab said nope rope behind the head.

Danger noodles got the full Monty of the end of the baton and we disposed of their bodies elsewhere

I like the idea of a tool useful for other situations.

In my misspent youth in the north central region of Texas, we used to catch rattlers. An old golf club with the head snapped off and a length of cable or wire or sturdy rope run down the shaft and doubled back on itself to create a loop works well. Loop the end of the cable around the snake's head and pull it taut against the end of the shaft. Viola! It's sorta like the collars the dog-catchers use to nab wayward mutts. Pick up said snake and deposit in the relocation area.

quote:

Originally posted by arfmel:
I’ve used one of these to grab a snake from an inaccessible spot now that I’m old and crippled up. Used gently, it won’t hurt the snake.

https://www.amazon.com/NEWMARK...84276317112596&psc=1

We just got a couple of those at work. I'm told they work well... for some reason I was headed in entirely the opposite direction!

If you look at vids of snake handling pros over the years, a snake hook is the tool of choice.



I’ve picked up many black snakes- trying to aggressively grip behind the head is a good way to get bitten, musked (nasty odor that), and is possibly injurious to the snake. For whatever reason, they don’t react adversely when picked up mid body by sticks, hands etc (probably because they can’t get leverage to strike at you) and quickly stop trying. I’ve moved several copperheads off the road as well as a couple of timber rattlers (with long sticks ) and never had one go into defensive mode.

This medium sized black rat snake was aggressively in defense mode with repeated strikes until I scooped it up mid body and passed it hand over hand a few times and it calmed right down.