Be careful where you plant your butt to glass!

[Wildabeest]

I hear they like to hide under toilet seats ....

This one was next to the toilet in my room at the Hilton in Santa Fe. Got up in the middle of the night to go, and in my groggy half-awake state saw it on the floor. Didn’t sleep the rest of the night. I told the guy at the front desk about it on my way out the next morning, and he said “yeah, it’s that time of year”.

 

[manitou1]

Gawd I hate spiders... all of them! You won't see me playing twinkle toes with an octopus either!
All growing up I was fascinated with snakes and to this day I have no qualms about picking up a copperhead and milking it's fangs over a stick. The past couple of years I have had two close calls with rattlesnakes in Wyoming. I have now discovered a fear of snakes for the first time in my life.

 

[Western Traveler1]

We had an outhouse at our hunting camp. It was your traditional wooden outhouse that stayed up all year. After a few years some of the wood needed replaced and when we tore it down to build the new one there were tons of spiders, black widows included, in the compartment under the seat. My brother now refuses to use it every fall until it has been bombed.

We hunted out of a friends cabin for years. One day his wife asked if we dared ever use the old outhouse there because of all the spiders. We said sure but we always bring an old newspaper and roll a sheet to make a torch and run it around below the seat to burn them out. She was surprised at that but then said, so that is how those lodge poles lining the pit got burned....guilty.

 

[Dunning Kruger]

Can deal with spiders, don’t mind snakes at all, but you can run me out of the country with a hornet nest. Got pounded by bald faced hornets as a kid setting chokers and that is definitely my kryptonite!

I havent been stung in many years, other than one little sweat bee that nailed me in the worst possible place when i was taking a leak a couple years ago. Bald face hornets and yellow jackets are everywhere here, nests all over under my roof overhang, they just never screw with me. Ill have bald face hornets land on me in my treestand, never get stung or bit.

 

[MarvB]

You’re a brave man DK!! That nest of bald faces I got into beat the piss out of me, I swear they were still hunting me down a 1/4mile away by the time I stopped running. Sting welts the size of half a golf ball. Never again

 

[Islander]

Not afflicted with a severe fear of spiders (or snakes)...but I do totally get it! Glad I don't have the reaction, but I see it is definitely real.

Female Regal Jumping spider. Largest species east of the Mississippi. She was welcome in camp. Of course you have about as much chance of getting bit by one of these as you do a golden retriever.

 

[matechakeric]

anyone ever felt their web with their finger. feels like fishing line. a feeling you can't unfeel

 

[Blacktail Addiction]

Spiders scare me the most especially when they surprise you, snakes also are pretty freaky to me when I don’t realize they are there, accidently stepped on 3 different snakes this year while spring bear hunting and it scared the crap out of me when the ground beneath my boot starts moving. Luckily all non poisonous. Crazy thread!

 

[Islander]

Not afflicted with a severe fear of spiders (or snakes)...but I do totally get it! Glad I don't have the reaction, but I see it is definitely real.

Female Regal Jumping spider. Largest species east of the Mississippi. She was welcome in camp. Of course you have about as much chance of getting bit by one of these as you do a golden retriever.
View attachment 175674

I just noticed this spider looks like Santa Clause. You can even see the little pointed hat and white line coat, with his long arms held down to his sides.

 

[Festus]

No problem with snakes. Always had one or two in a box or a fish tank when I was younger... But hate spiders!!
The last few summers, here at work you could find a dozen black widows around the outside of the building in just a few minutes.
This year not a one (so far). I'm not complaining

 

[NoWiser]

I have no fear of creatures that have from 0-8 legs, but I have zero time for anything with more than that. I'm looking at you, centipedes.

 

[Wallydeuce]

I got nailed on the top of my little toe by a bark scorpion. In my home! It felt like I stepped on a hot needle except it was on the top, not bottom. I was convalescing with a bad case of shingles. All in all, not a good time.

 

[Schaaf]

When I was fresh out of high school I was a grave digger at the local cemetery. In the down times I would search for Black Widows in the sprinkler boxes. We would always catch them and throw them in the Red Ant hills.

It was kind of like watching a grown man beat up kindergarten kids in waves of 12 with a boss 5th grader every other wave. The ants eventually pulled the black widows apart.

 

[7mm08mo]

Don’t mind spiders at all. My middle son has an irrational fear of them. I do hate snakes, killed two copperheads in 24 hours last week in the driveway. The older I get the less hate I have for non poisonous snakes though, but they still send a shiver up my spine. They are the devil.

 

[Islander]

Last month I was taking a leak just off the pavement before unloading my dirtbike. Looked down and there was a coiled up copperhead about 3 feet to my left. Very docile snake. He quickly slithered off as soon as I finished. Seemed to have a huge bladder that day.

 

[LuketheDog]

This is my daughter's current favorite youtube show...for you spider lovers

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[JDH]

Not afflicted with a severe fear of spiders (or snakes)...but I do totally get it! Glad I don't have the reaction, but I see it is definitely real.

Female Regal Jumping spider. Largest species east of the Mississippi. She was welcome in camp. Of course you have about as much chance of getting bit by one of these as you do a golden retriever.
View attachment 175674

Is that a baby one? We see wolf spiders here that are almost 2" across.

 

[deer_shooter]

I have no fear of snakes at all but spiders are a whole different thing. I used to be terrified of them but I've since mellowed to mild fear/strong revulsion. We get some big honking wolf spiders in my area that give me the creeps.

For my fellow arachnophobes, google goliath bird eating spider if you have no interest in sleeping for a while.

 

[Islander]

Is that a baby one? We see wolf spiders here that are almost 2" across.

Wolf spiders are not jumping spiders. The regal is the largest jumping spider in the East. This is a female. She's actually on the large size, the largest getting to about 3/4". I promise that even at this size, if one of these jumps onto most people they will shit gold bricks. Thankfully they are utterly tame and harmless. Getting them to bite would take some hard work.

We have much larger spiders down South of course. This one caught a bird in its web. My wife released it. It was more than 5" leg tip to leg tip and nice and fat. It is a Golden Silk Orb Weaver. Every year in mid October we move several of these to our porch in preparation for Halloween. They will weave their last web wherever you put them at that time of year. They live until mid-late November, but they are in the process of dying and lose their mobility. They can react to touch and move their legs, but they aren't mobile. They don't feed. They just sit completely still as the life ebbs out of them. My wife has a blast with the local trick or treaters. They will ask her about our "fake spiders", and after she loads the kids up with candy she'll touch one of the spiders with her finger and make it move! As they sprint for the cars, we laugh and laugh.

 

[TOGIE]

i entirely forgot about this little surprise glassing partner i found right next to my sittin rock last spring scouting a mule deer spot.

i seem to recall how amazing it was that my eyes were so quickly drawn to it without me even realizing why. that red spot.... it was like you could see it from a mile away. it's like my brain saw it and said get away before i actually realized why or what it was. some deep ancient biological stuff going on there.



she was hanging out right under these tent caterpillars, no wonder she was so fat