watch wear you step.

wear boots.


Use sunscreen, wear a hat and sunglasses, wear long pants long sleeved outdoors clothing. Use bug spray. Bugs and sun won't kill you(well, sun/skin cancer is a concern i guess) but it's good to take precautions.

lift things so toward you so they are in between you and whatever is beneath.

leave venomous animals alone, don't attempt to pick them up, "catch" them, etc. (important for anyone unexperienced, though you have to start somewhere if that is your goal)

Just as important, leave creatures you can't identify alone. That little 6 inch long baby snake that is too young for an unexperienced person to identify might be packing some heat in its bite.

These are just general common sense rules to keep yourself safe and healthy. I know I have not always followed them every time I went out field herping. I have also had enough close calls with hots when I was a young teen to scare me into being more cautious nowadays than I used to be.

As far as equipment goes, really all you need is clothing(though clothing-optional field herping would be interesting), your eyes, your legs, and your hands. I have never brought a snake hook out field herping, and while it might have been nice for cottonmouths and copperheads, there were always plenty of impromptu tree limbs lying around that work just fine.