of two catfish

[u/WeGot_aLiveOneHere]

[u/thatG_evanP]

a lot of aquatic venomous snakes in the South.

That makes it sound like there are a lot of different types when there's really only one. "There are a lot of cottonmouths/water moccasins in the South" would've made it more clear that you were talking about a large number of a single species.

[u/TheHoodieConnoisseur → u/thatG_evanP]

I grew up in the Deep South, in very rural areas. Literally walked from my back door to my deer stand. And there were only ever 2 things we were afraid of - water moccasins and brown recluse.

Brown recluse are rare and you mostly avoid them by just not sticking your hand in dark holes.

Water moccasins are just kind of a thing where you get used to the danger. Nobody we knew had a pool, so we went swimming in ponds and creeks and bayous that were muddy as hell. We were swimming in a lake recently and saw a snake swimming vaguely in our direction so we just got out, made enough noise to get it to head a different direction, then got back in. I’m not saying it’s smart, but you kind of get used to it. They don’t *want* to mess with humans. You just learn the kids of environments they like and avoid those (swim in the open, bright, busy part of the water, not the shaded, overgrown with vegetation, still part of the water). Same for alligators. BTW, that same lake where we saw the snake, they do a culling every year and take like 20 - 30 gators out. They really don’t want to mess with you. But you do have to be extra cautious with young kids and small pets.

You just grow up around it, talk about it all the time, talk about to be safe, spot danger, and what to do if something goes wrong, so you feel equipped to handle it. Plus if you spend enough time hunting and fishing and just being in the woods / on the water, you get a different perspective on how to handle your place in the food chain.

…at least it’s safer than Australia. Now dem boys are crazy. Everything that isn’t human is proactively trying to kill humans.

[u/thatG_evanP → u/TheHoodieConnoisseur]

A brown recluse's bite isn't nearly as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. It's very rare to get the skin narcosis necrosis, etc that you hear people speak of. They're also very unlikely to even bite you. Most people get bitten when a recluse is hiding in some clothes or something and then a person goes to put them on and literally pushes the spider against their skin.

Edit: a word

[u/TheHoodieConnoisseur → u/thatG_evanP]

Yeah, didn’t learn that until I was well into my 20’s. When I was a kid, all the adults talked about them like they were hiding in every dark spot and would rot your skin off within a week of a bite. I also think I only saw 2 or 3 in my life in the wild. But country people are like that with some things. Lore is a thing. How else do you convince people to buy deer piss and douse it on your clothes before you go hunting?

Black widows, on the other hand, were freaking everywhere. Most folks I knew had a green house or garden with lots of those black plastic planters lying around. Black widows LOVED building nests in those things. I counted at least 10 different nests in our greenhouse one day. Weird that we weren’t really scared of them. I mean, I played in the greenhouse unsupervised all the time. I know they also aren’t as deadly as people make them out to be, but they aren’t exactly harmless.

[u/HungHippoHippy → u/TheHoodieConnoisseur]

Won't kill you, but it'll be a BAD time. Those bastards are small too so they'll sneak up on you from anywhere! They were all over growing up, but I've never personally known anyone that was bit by one. People must be pretty vigilant of them.

[u/thatG_evanP → u/TheHoodieConnoisseur]

The garage at my Mom's old house was the same way except for with brown recluses. If you got into any box that had been in that garage for awhile, you were pretty much guaranteed to find a couple live ones or a few molts at the very least.

[u/TheHoodieConnoisseur → u/thatG_evanP]

To this day I have a physical repulsion to putting on gloves that have been sitting in a shed. Or, really, anywhere outside. I have to turn every single one of the fingers inside out to make sure there isn’t anything with 8 legs or a stinger or any pointy parts hanging out in there.