Friendly, watch your step reminder......
Whitetail Deer
Not a big guy, but big enough
Not a big guy, but big enough
Someone check on Rut Nut. If he opens this thread he could have a heart attack!
He ain’t missing any meals though. Big enough for sure
Bet it spent a little time swallowing this meal.
What is that....gray squirrel?
Damn Joey, we got to work on your wardrobe
I told my son he should've worn his KUIU socks.
LOL ;-)
Hey, there's a snake minding it's own business just wanting to eat rats.....let's kill it! We often have it ass-backwards!
This one crawled into my Blind and coiled up next the the door zipper. They do not understand Cussing or English.
This one crawled into my Blind and coiled up next the the door zipper. They do not understand Cussing or English.
Hey, there's a snake minding it's own business just wanting to eat rats.....let's kill it! We often have it ass-backwards!
Cool story
This one came across my driveway this afternoon. Michigan Pete guilted my into letting it go.
Sorry bigswivel, forgot to tell my son to put on his Sitka socks. :-)
Had to deal with this bad hombre youth season.
The Nomad shirt, Crocs and Kmart blue light special socks really were a fashion disaster. We can all agree on that :)
I wonder if Rut Nut would agree with Michigan Pete about the snake minding its own business part
Once you’ve been bitten by a poisonous snake, it becomes personal
AMEN Conner! Every time I see a DEAD rattler I get a warm fuzzy feeling. ;-)
Chris- I'm getting better................................only wince a little bit when I see a pic of a snake now.
Hope you folks are wearing some sort of snake protection!
I get Pete’s point. But I live in a rural area. Snakes, and the poisonous variety, are a common occurrence. I don’t kill every poisonous snake I come across, but the ones around my house, shop, barns usually have to die.
This rattler was in my garage. He had to go. My family knows to pay attention whenever they go outside. And pay close attention to where they walk or put their hands.
Copperheads and moccasins are the most common. But rattlers are pretty common too.
This moccasin was under my garbage can. I’ve gone to pull it to the road several times and one has been under it. My family and neighbors know to move them during daylight so not to be so surprised. He had to go.
This one was by the door to my shop. He had to go.
Moccasins are bad news. Very aggressive. I got bit by a copperhead a couple years ago and I swear that thing hunted me down just to bite my ass.
This one was far enough away from the house he got a pass.
So yeah, I don’t kill everyone. Not a big deal.
My wife killed this copperhead while doing some planting in a flowerbed. She kinda goes crazy with the Mark II. Likes to make sure they’re dead. :-) lol
Geez Joey......................I’m glad we only have Timber Rattlers and Copperheads up here! If I had that many different poisonous snakes where I lived I think I would be moving.................. ;-)
That big one that swallowed the squirrel..................was that a diamondback?
bigswivle, where did the copperhead bite you? How did you handle it?
Rut Nut, timber rattler. Diamondbacks are rare in my area.
His hide was given to a friend to back a selfbow. And while we didn't eat that one, my family has enjoyed fried rattler many times.
On my foot. Spent night in hospital and was on crutches for a week probably. Three weeks to a month maybe, before all the swelling in my leg went away. Nothing like rut nuts ordeal but also nothing I’d like to do again
I hear ya.............As many that we come across, it's a wonder none of us have been bitten. But it's sorta like a hitting a deer/hog with your vehicle. You just know it's going to happen. Just not when. Have to be extremely careful living in the country. :-)
Biggest concern for us, this time of the year, is wasps/hornets. Nests everywhere and under or inside everything. Have to tap or carefully lift everything you move or sit on, outside. :-)
Man! Those timber rattlers are beautiful!
If anyone wants to get rid of any Timber rattler or copperhead skins, would love them for some of my longbows or selfbows!
Mostly prairie rattlers out here with diamondbacks down further south. Never have run across any timber rattlers anywhere I have hunted.
Well, it looks like a big one, Joey!
Did they give you anti-venom Conner?
Don’t check the mail after dark either. Without a flashlight. And a pistol. Lol. :-)
Most of the rattlesnakes I've seen in PA have gone out of their way to leave the area. OTOH, copperheads are assholes. See them occasionally on the rail trail or the one road we access our hunting area. They do not give way.
Well, I'm gonna stay the HELL out of Alabama after seeing all your pics Joey! ;-)
No anti-venom Perry, they laid it in the table next to but we never used it. Being 235lbs and in decent shape I was able to fight off any bad side effects. Old people and children are who copperheads hurt the most. Glad it was me and not one of my girls
On a side note; don’t ever go to emergency room in Hendersonville NC, pretty good chance u won’t survive.
Glad you didn’t need it. They say a copperhead bite generally isn’t as bad as a timber rattler bite. Although, to me that’s like saying getting shot with a .380 ain’t as bad as with a .45! ;-). Personally, I don’t wanna get shot with either one!
Care to elaborate on the N.C. ER?
Oh man, I’ll give u the short list.
1. No idea what to do about a snake bite of any kind.
2. Wife had to clean the bite up
3. Nurse who kept measuring the swelling up my leg would come in and measure ina different spot every time. In short, sometimes my leg shrunk in an hour and sometimes it grew. The fact was he was just measuring in different spots every time. Lmao.
4. Wife had to go to local pharmacy to buy crutches
5. Nurses kept coming in my room all night to take selfies because they’d never seen a snake bite before(which didn’t bother me to bad because a couple of them were HOT)
5. I left the next morning without checking out because they could t get there shat together.
Oh Lord........................................my toxicologist told me about ER's like that! He said God forbid if a surgeon sees that swelling and doesn;t know about snakebites.......................he'll start cutting layers of tissue to try to eleviate the pressure. (and make things MUCH worse!)
LOL! I know what you mean..........................................seemed like every day I had a new nurse or Dr. come in to look at my leg. It was a teaching hospital, so the docs would ask if it was ok if the interns came in to see a "textbook" case! ;-)
They drew lines on my leg with a marker so the nurses would know exactly where to measure. 3 sites- one Directly below and above the bite and then one up on my thigh. May not look like a lot of swelling, but I have very skinny legs! ;-)
My biggest phobia is snakes. I now know I will never take a step outdoors in Alabama. And, I disagree with my WI friend Pete. I say kill them all. This thread is like fear therapy for me. I'm OK looking at pics (sort of). If I walked upon one, I'd bolt screaming like a little girl.
My point is pretty simple. Everyone ever bit by a snake, was sort of in their domain, and likely or nearly stepped on them. The snake might be the most feared animal, unless you're the snake, or any other living animal, and then it becomes quite clear, we are the most vicious animal there is. We kill shit because we look at them as dangerous, and somehow the snake is the enemy, because it bit a human for the same reason? I'm not a freedom fighter, but I'm very aware of the good that these creatures do, even when someone happens to get bit. Their camouflage is impeccable, but if we slowed down, or wore the right leggings when we are in their environment, we could coexist. I know people who kill harmless snakes for the same reason (fear), and I find it sad. Given the opportunity, the snake would rather crawl away. The fact that a rattler is gifted with a warning signal seems like a blessing, but we still gas them from their dens? I'll never see it any other way. Sorry you got bit. Have a great day.
Happy, I could get you over your phobia. You just need to hold one. Remember, the bubonic plague killed more people than any snake ever did, and that was because of a flea on a rat. Rats are far more terrifying lol. Carry on fellas!
Pete- don’t bet your life on that “warning signal!” Especially where TIMBER Rattlers are concerned. Do a little reading and you will find they are notorious for NOT rattling! In fact, I have seen 2 Timber Rattlers in Pa. and neither one of them rattled! The one that bit me never rattled before, during or even after striking!
Pete, I know snakes. I assume you know cheese. We’ll leave it at that. :-)
Have had some interesting snake encounters. Twice, once in California and once in the Breaks, I've watched the foot of the guy walking in front of me come down within a foot of a coiled3-3.5' rattler. In both cases the snake rattled and coil walked further under the sage. Both guys set world record sage hurdle times.
I laughed and got sworn at. Still makes me smile.
Working at a lodge outside of Douglas a 3' rattler was coiled up on the driveway concrete. My client wanted to kill it. I caught it and walked into the kitchen to get one of the step to open trash cans. It was coiled up around my arm. We had a NZ cook named Maudie Downs. She backed up against the sink, knife in hand and called me things I still don't know the meaning of.
At the same place we were sneaking up to get photos of a true monster elk. It was cool and that may have been what saved me but I stepped right on the head of a rattler. It didn't rattle, simply slid off into the grass.
Long ago I killed a rattler. Won't do it again.
Killed by my B-I-L last Saturday aft.
Joey, I might just know both? I'll tell you what's even less predictable, and that is man! They have fangs that run much deeper, and their venom is lack of compassion. We have, since the beginning of time, killed, what we feared. Don't be so afraid dude.
Killed by a friend week before last.
This is mating season in the South for timber rattlers. They are on the move looking for love (kindda).
Pete, I’ll do my best. ;-)
"don’t bet your life on that 'warning signal!'”
My foot was on its way to landing on the X when that little voice in the back of my head told me to back the heck up NOW. This one was fully coiled, and never made a sound. Had I put my foot down as planned, it might have sat still, or - 6 miles in from the nearest road - in it might have cost me a ride in a helicopter.
Just glad I grew up running around barefoot in cactus/goathead/thistle/snake country, or I might not he been paying attention; as it was, honestly, I had backed up a pace and a half before I even registered that I had done it.
If it’s poisonous and anywhere near my house, it’s dead. Snakes are incapable of remembering you spared their life. Spare it one day and step on it the next and you’ll wish you wouldn’t have spared it. Non-venomous snakes do a fine job of controlling the rodent population.
-Mitch
I'll never forget the first time I saw a large poisonous snake while hunting. I was back in a piece of public ground over a mile from the trail and just about stepped on a timber rattler. luckily I looked down and saw the cool pattern coiled in my way. I was half a step from walking on him. The snake didn't rattle or hardly move, cooler temperatures played a role in that. The next day I talked to a local bird hunter that had hunted that area for 25 years and didn't believe me that there where Timbers around until I showed him a picture of it coiled up. Now I have snake gaiters when I leave Michigan to hunt.
After reading that info about Timbers not rattling, whenever someone tells me they saw one now, the first thing I ask is if it rattled? And I have gotten more responses in the negative, than in the positive.
