Id like to hear your guys snake encounters.
While out scouting this weekend I had one of my own.I was climbing over an old fence.My hunting partner went over first, before I went over I threw my pack when I threw my pack and it hit ground about a 6' rattle snake struck at my pack.
It was rattling the whole time I just thought that it was grasshoppers making that clicking noise they make.I honestly thought that it was to cold for snakes.Needless to say I still have the jeeebs.

My FIL had a German Shorthair Pointer bit in the sinus cavity by a rattler. Either it was a dry strike, or the poison was injected only in the sinus cavity and it came out with all the blood. Speaking of blood; it was everywhere, he blew blood all over the grass, cactus, out boots, ect. He kenneled the dog to watch the effects, but he never had any problem. Ole Newt is still with us today, albeit a "semi retired" quail hunter at almost 10 years old.

I was hanging a homemade climber on an oak several years ago and after about 5 mins of tightening bolts I looked down to see a 3 foot rattler coiled up 6" from my boot. I just eased back and whacked him with a big stick. he never rattled until I smacked him. It was a tense moment....

We were turkey hunting in central Texas a couple years back and encountered a nice rattler about 5 foot long. My buddy was walking in front of me and stepped right over him. Lets just say a #4 turkey load does a hell of a job at 5 feet.

Had a copperhead laying on the door step one day. Stepped right over him before noticing. Dispatched him with a 22cal air rifle.

They all give me the eebie jeebies.

Reloader7RM

Last year I pinned the head of a copperhead under a stick and did a coup de grace.

A few years back I was a scoutmaster for the local BS troop. During one of our outings in Northern California I located a coiled timber rattler sunning itself on a concrete slab in a field full of rip-rap. Decided to edumacate the boys, so I called them all over and cautioned them to stand on the small crests around the depression I was standing in. I pointed out the coiled rattler and proceeded to discuss all I knew about them. When I got to the part about rattlers can usually only strike about 50% of their body length, one of the boys asked ... aren't you concerned that you'll get bit? No, I said, that rattler is only about 3 1/2 feet long and I am at least six feet away, so there is no danger. The young lad then asked ... how about that one right under the slab you're standing on? I peered over the edge of the slab and it's mate was about 6 inches from the toes of my boots. Yes I can moonwalk!!!

I've about stepped on 3 of the bastids in the last few years after not even seeing one for many years. God damn things can disappear if conditions are right.

Not long ago (I thought it was too cold for snakes out too) my son and I were walking off a predator calling stand. As I went to put my foot down, I saw the ground beneath it move. I just KNEW what it was, and jumped a good, oh, 12 feet or so in the air. Never rattled until after I started [bleep]' with him.

A few months after that, son and I again walking out, just after dark. We only heard it this time, directly in front of us. Jumped back, put a light on him. Little bastard, but he wasn't pleased with our presence. A .22 snake shot capsule ended him since we were going to be in and out of the same area for the following days.

Came up on one alone, about 5 miles from the vehicle, scouting in a rough area. I'm typically very cautions, but dammit, he still got too close for comfort before I glimpsed him. That one shook me up more than the others because I was so far from the truck, and the truck was 50 miles from the nearest help or phone reception. I'd of been screwed. As soon as I got home, before I went out on my next trip, I picked up a "spot" messenger.

If you need any motivation to watch out for the bastids or prepare for the event of a bite, here you go: (Graphic)

http://www.rattlesnakebite.org/rattlesnakepics.htm

Found these to show my son after I observed him being a little too care free with hand and boot placement in the sticks. He now enthusiastically obeys the rule of "never put your hands or feet where you can't see".

I had a feeder I kept feeding year round. One trip I filled it and sat in stand for a few hours. Noticed what turned out to be a 5 footer under it. It would wait for and eat the birds that were coming to the corn. I was at a safe distance so I wasn't threatened. I picked up a baseball sized flat rock and flinged it side armed. Thawack. Broke its neck. Couldn't make that throw again I my life depended on it.

I was 16 and took a hit on the leg but was wearing the Gander mountain chaps with the wire mesh. Quite a rodeo with me jumping, yelling and dang near sheiting myself while this poor snake had his fangs stuck in my chaps.

Tough to hunt when your looking at the ground all the time.

I was hanging some stands last month and had the following encounter. I arrived at the property and parked on a grassy area I had recently bush-hogged. I had my 4 wheeler on a trailer, so I unloaded and went about my business. It took roughly two hours, so I got back hot and tired and thinking about my water in the truck. I loaded the ATV on the trailer, secured it with straps and closed the ramp. At that point I started walking to my truck door, and just happened to look down. There, laying exactly where I was about to step to open the door was a 4 foot rattler. He wasn't coiled, but was stretched. Needless to say I jumped about 4 feet high and almost soiled my britches (I hate snakes). I climbed in the back of the truck, opened the oposite rear door (4 door chevy) and got my pistol. At that point I remember shooting some turtles a few days before and using all my ammo. I gave up on that idea and found a 1 x 1 board my Dad had dumped in a pile to be burned. I was able to connect on the rattlers head and kill him. I brought him out and shared my story.......I get chills writing about it now

Most rattlers I've ever encountered was during a summer I worked as a research assistant out of Casper WY. Most interesting experience was while climbing, looked down on the last ledge I'd just passed to see a coiled rattler lying there. Reached down with a 30cm section of pipe (stupid, but he never saw me), and flipped him off the ledge. Tons of rattlers in the Powder River basin.

Ran across this 5 footer while varmint calling... He ate real well...


I was driving out of a hunting spot after hunting in the AM. Thought I heard something a little different.. Backed up and there was a 3' Mojave rattling at my 35" tire.

Came across a small rise last year, heard something different again. Saw a 3' Mojave again. XD-40 took care of this one again!

Okay...here is my story...though it stems from a cottonmouth rather than a rattlesnake.

Lets begin with the simple fact that I, somehow, amazingly turn into an 8yo girl in the presence of snakes. I was stationed in tejas for 4 years and did more than a little bass fishing down there. I was always chasing big bass in small, out of the way, ponds. One pond in particular had some high quality potential for pot bellied bass (caught my first 10#er there, and watched a pard catch and release a 14#er). It was relatively shallow and we fished it while wearing waders and using a float tube. Now picture this....here I am in my waders with a few rods, and a small bag of tackle in one hand, a float tube and pair of fins in the other. I was walking around the side of the pond, minding my own business and thinking of all the giant bass I was going to catch, when all of a sudden I looked down and seen a cottonmouth all jacked up with its mouth wide open....I'm pretty darn sure that I seen god at that moment.....next thing I remember is me standing about 200yards from the scene of the crime holding NONE of my gear...seems I flung it all to the 4 winds in my mad dash to walk on water to get to the other side of the pond. I was still smoking then and I know I smoked at least 1/2 pack just trying to get the nerve up to go back and get all my gear....the fact that I was using high quality gear was the bane of my existence at that time, for if I had been using cheap chit I would have left it for the next guy to pick up. And now I'm glad I'm back in Michigan where the snakes aren't poisonous and the women keep you warm in winter....

And then there was the time when we had an LT that more afraid of snakes than I was.....We found a little rattler one evening while out in the field and killed it(grunt's are good for that kind of stuff)...the LT was at a meeting with the Company Comander and we (being the good troops we were) figured that since he (the LT) was the one who wasn't at the OP with us, it was only fitting that we opened up the top flap of his rucksack and coiled that guy up on top and then pulled it down and closed it up...we all figured he'd find it as soon as he returned from him command meeting...he didn't. Sometime around 0 dark thirty he woke up and decided to get into his ruck....the screams woke the whole platoon on the OP and the LT was pizzed (extremely pizzed)...we all paid for it...but he's the one who had to spend the next week in the same trousers he pizzed himself in so it was worth it....(grin) Gawd...I hate snakes.

Years ago I did two weeks of annual training (national guard) in the desert near Fallon Nevada. One morning my sergeant and I went looking for snakes. Got to the top of a rocky hill. I was standing on top of a rock pile and we heard rattling underneath. We had a shovel and pried a big rock loose and their was a big Western Diamondback under it. I would hold out my foot (clad in combat boots) and the snake would hit the sole of the boot. I had venom all over my boot. After a while we killed the snake, took him back to camp and my sergeant skinned him and rolled the skin in salt for a hat band. I hate rattlers. Just plain hate 'em. They really don't tell you how dangerous these things are. If you get hit and you are a long way from medical care, you're a dead man.

I'm not kidding....a near miss would send me off crying, let alone to have one hit me.

They taste just like chicken!

[quote=Joe_Kidd]Most rattlers I've ever encountered was during a summer I worked as a research assistant out of Casper WY.quote] I first hunted antelope out of Casper one mid-Sept a few years ago. My brother-in-law was outside of Gillette doing the same thing. He asked me afterwards "Did you see lots of rattlers like we did?" Gave me a cold shiver because I walked around without a care, crawling on my belly, not watching where I was going, etc. Probably can thank that cold front that week and it's mid-to-high 30's temperatures.

JimmyC: After 45 years of close encounters and dozens of near miss Rattlesnake strikes at me, on August 22nd of 2,006 I stepped on a Rattlesnake (barefooted!) in my front yard here in SW Montana!
The bite entered the arch of my bare foot as I was standing naked in my yard at midnight! I was watching the VarmintDog do his rare middle of the night urination tour of the yard and I was half asleep myself still - completely unaware of the danger and in fact of the biting until after it happened!
The resulting pain, swelling, nausea, hallucinations, temperature fluctations, inability to walk and profound pain that lasted well into November have given me a whole new RESPECT and wariness of Rattlesnakes!
I used to work every summer as a teenager in the fields and ranches near Madras and Bend, Oregon. Work had to be ceased by mid-day back then as the Rattlesnakes would be so warmed and so quick of striking that it was fool hardy to work when the snakes had warmed up later in the day!
We started our work early, before dawn in fact, as the rattlers were well cooled and slow that early in the day.
I had a day Varminting in the Okanogan country of Washington state back in the mid 1970's that included three strikings at me by Rattlers! I was a little shakey on the trigger the rest of that weekend!
But my most sickeningly scarey encounter with a Rattler came one hot summer afternoon in the irrigation canals around Bend, Oregon when I was 17!
My cousin and I and some workmates would water ski in the irrigation canals behind a Jeep late in the afternoons and early evenings!
All was well once the skier was in the water but getting up and down the banks of the canals always had the danger of a snake encounter.
Well it was my turn to ski in the canal and I got up on the single ski and had a good ski run for a while. But on a corner I took a bad fall and ricocheted off of the bank and knocked some of the wind out of me and a lot of canal water into me!
I was having trouble there in the water - sputtering and spitting water and gasping for breath all the while trying to swim to the bank. Alas as I got some footing on the steep bank at waters edge I took a step up but fell. I slid forward onto the bank and came face to face with a large Rattler!
It tried to slither up and I tried to slither back into the water even though I was still choking and gasping for air!
All I could do was kick over onto my back and do the backstroke away from the Rattler!
The Rattlesnake was now on a steep part of the bank that was nothing but tiny pieces of rock and it could not get enough traction to go up but at the same time caused a surface slide of tiny rocks and the rocks and "it" slid into the water about 4 feet from me!
The guys in the jeep were yelling for me to fetch the single ski we were using (that was going down canal quickly) but I and the snake were now swimming across the 15' wide canal!
Adrenaline was REALLY kicking in now as the snake was following me for a ways!
I hit the opposite bank of the canal with my head and spun around onto my stomach and 4 wheel drived myself (using hands and feet to claw up the steep bank) up and out of the water!
When I got to the top of the bank I turned and looked back and the snake was coming ashore downstream about 15 feet from me!
The tow jeep and my friends were on the opposite side of the canal and it was a long time before I went back to the water and swam across that canal to the Jeep!
I think that was my LAST canal water skiing adventure EVER!
I still have an unpleasant dream about that close encounter now and again!
Avoid being bitten by a Rattler at all costs!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I was standing about thigh deep in a small creek, trout fishing. There was a few bushy tree limbs overhanging the creek, and I felt something rubbing up against my thigh.

I thought it was a piece of one of the tree limbs in the water, and as I don't like to feel things against my legs when I a wading, I moved over a foot or so to get away from it.

A minute or two later, I felt it again, so this time, I decided I would just reach down a ick it up and throw it onto the bank.

I reached down beside my leg and picked it up out of the water. Instead of it being a piece of tree limb, it was about a four foot long banded water snake. They resemble a Copperhead and some people think they are, but banded water snakes are non venomous. Venomous or not, standing in thigh deep water and holding one in the middle, with two feet of snake on each side of my hand in thigh deep water was closer than I wanted to be to it.

I made a standing jump in thigh deep water to the bank, about 8 feet away. If the snake wanted the pool that bad, I was glad to give it up.

I've seen two pointing dogs bit on the tongue while pointing a snake. Neither survived. Most rattlers that I encounter are while fishing along the Deschutes River. Usually, I just tap them on the head with my fly rod and they disappear into the brush.

Norm

Those "common" water snakes can be aggressive as heck. I have had several encounters such as yours.

While geocaching in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona earlier this year, sticking my face under ledges, etc, I ran eyeball to eyeball into this little guy. After an initial shock, I backed off, got the camera ready, and gently moved back in for this shot. His camouflage was perfect. Took his picture, and then found the cache I was looking for about six feet away under a different ledge.

I have run into quite a few of them hunting sage grouse and chuckar in Idaho. Mostly the "little girly" Great Basin variety. They all die if I can kill them but a few slithered away before I could get a bead on them.

My scariest encounter was at Camp Pendleton in Nov 2006. I took my flack & kevlar off and put it on the deck beside the AAV I was in to have evening chow. After I was done I went to pick up my gear and as I reached down I noticed movement and I jumped about 10 feet as I realized it was a baby sidewinder. It was real cold out and almost dark so I assume the snake liked the heat from my flak jacket. ( I had been sweating in it all day). I couldn't kill the damn thing because everyone outranking me told me to leave it alone. It was more of a "don't get hurt" thing than a don't kill it thing. I think it would have been safer to let me kill it than let it slither around everyone's gear. Sometimes (usually) officers don't think things through.

I've had a few run-ins, sometimes I kill 'em, sometimes (rarely) I don't.

My favorite tales happened to friends of mine. The first one got chased into the bed of his pickup by an uppity snattlerake that proceeded to park itself under the tailgate. He sat there for a while before realizing that there was a stray CCI shotshell on the dash that would work real nice in the .45 under the seat. It required some gymnastics & contortions to get into the cab from the bed without his feet touching the ground, but it all worked out in the end.

The other one was a coworker. I got back from lunch one day & there was a rattler coiled up in the parking lot - right where I was going to park. I swung around and backed in to the spot, keeping the snake on the far side of the car, got out, creeped around the rear end & chucked a couple rocks at it. Nothing. On close examination I discovered that it was an ex-snake - some smart a** had dispatched it, taken the rattle and posed it in the parking lot. Cut to the chase, co-worker is late returning from lunch....still later, phone rings..."I'm in the parking lot & there's a big snake out here". I ask him how long he's been sitting there - "about 20 minutes". Me: "It's dead, dumba**". Him: "Is it? I'll be right in."

WHY would you go purposley looking for snakes? I do not understand

I was out during Spring Gobbler season back in 2000. It was time to head back to camp a bit after noon (in VA can only hunt the birds till noon). I decided to take a short cut through "field of rocks" on my way down the mountain. I was half way through with one foot all the way up about to step when i heard that horrible sound. I never realized I could jump backwards on my other foot in the opposite direction then the direction I was headed so fast.

Needless to say I was bit freaked out. It actually took me several seconds to spot him (only 4 feet long) as he blended so well into those rocks and he was only a couple of feet in fornt of me. So now I'm half way trough this "rock field" and I'm thinking "where are all his buddies....which way to go"

I do a lot of horseback riding in the woods near home and had a lot of encounters with black phase timber rattle snakes. One day in late august a few years back I was riding an 8 mile loop and ran in to 5 that day. I always beleive they have just as much right to be in the woods as me. In all my encounters with them they always gave me fair warning of there presence and showed no aggression toward me as long as I left them alone to hunt their chipmunks.

Whoa! That brings back memories! Three high school buddies joined me for a Spring fishing trip on the Deschutes one weekend. After getting bored, we decided to explore up in the rim rocks. After stepping over two rattlers, we were all kinda antsy when one "friend" reached down and yanked on the cuff of a buddy's blue jeans. Memories of the resulting "rim rock dance" still make me laugh nearly forty years later.

This timber rattler tried to bite my ten year old daughter, after a 5 mile hike into the wilderness a couple of years ago. I still think of the coronary I would have had running with her in my arms back to the truck. This one got two doses of snake shot from a S&W 340PD.

Don

Disclaimer:
The above photo is a post-mortem, posed shot. I did the actual shooting, and the snake was in the mud closer to the water!
Also, I generally step around the vermin, without doing harm, but this one was in my campsite/fishing hole, and I had a kid with me!
Don

The only good snake is one already made into a hatband or cowboy boots!!!!!

See a lot of 'em here, anymore I just leave 'em alone, they can't help it they were born as they are, they're just trying to make a living, too. They do eat mice, I'm more worried about Hantavirus than snakebite.

Lots of these in Georgia. Usually kill 'em with a handgun or a long stick.......

I've came close several times over the years. One I almost stepped on a few years ago:





MtnHtr

Several years ago, a party of us went deer hunting in the early fall in South Georgia. As we were setting up camp, one of the hunters saw a Diamondback about 5 or 6 feet long right where he was going to pitch his tent.

We usually don't bother them, but as this one was right in camp, someone decided it might be best to make the camp as little safer, so he hit it in the head with a long stick.

We moved it away from the clearing, and continued to set up camp.

After we went to bed, the man who killed the snake though he would like to have the rattlers. It had about 14.

He didn't have a light, but he walked outside the tent barefoot and carrying a knife. He knew about where he had put the snake, so he felt around on the ground with his bare foot. He finally found it, and picked it up, feeling in one direction until he felt the head, then he moved his hand to the other end until he felt the rattlers. He cut the rattlers off and went back to bed.

Imigine his surprise the next morning when he took another look at the rattler and discovered that it still had it rattlers attached.

I was hiking one time and stepped over a ground squirrel hole, when my buddy behind me started freaking out. There was nice rattler coiled up right next to hole and I never noticed. I hate to think what he could have reached up and bit when I strode over him.

Another "test of nerves" type Rattlesnake encounter I endured came when I and two friends were climbing down off of a mountain near Brewster, Washington where we had been shooting Rock Chucks.
The three of us were walking single file down the steep mountain and we were in a narrow all rocky passage that lead the way we wanted to go.
At the narrowest part of the passage the two fellows ahead of me yelled snake!
We all stopped and looked for "it" - as we could hear it, but could not see "it"!
My friend Jack (in the lead) said "there it is in that crevice".
My friend Louie and I saw it instantly at about chest level and still 6 feet in front of the two of us, and it was a small Rattlesnake.
My "friend" Jack raised his custom 240 Weatherby Varmint Rifle all of a sudden and fired at the snake about 4 feet distant from him!
We don't know if he hit that small Rattler or not but the resulting muzzle blast and bullet explosion caused a small "raining" of other similar sized Rattlers to be blown OUT of that crevice and all around us!
Louie and I both cursed Jack and turned and ran back the way we had come!
As we sped back out of that narrow confine we saw several squirming and mangled young Rattlers in our path!
Thankfully none of the three of us were hurt by flying schrapnel or by flying pissed off Rattlers!
Jack later apologized and tried to rationalize his use of the Magnum at such close and NOISEY quarters!
He was simply scared into making a poor decision - under the influence of adrenaline we called it!
Theres an old saying "God protects fools and idiots" - or something like that.
Case in point that one.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Not a personal encounter, but a family member emailed the below photos to me, rcvd from someone else. The text w/ the photos said they were taken in the Whetstone mountains near Tucson, AZ. I can't vouch for the location since I don't know who took the photos.

Gasoline and match, or a 12 gauge with a box of #8s would clean up this mess real nice(My apologies to any rattlesnake lovers).

Rich

12 gauge & gas sound real good to me....I hate those bastards...

That set of pictures was taken by a friend of my moms... In the flats near the Catalins mountians in Tucson, Az.


This August, I was about to stalk some deer with my bow.. Decided to releave myself before I went over to try and get bloody.. A 5+ foot ( belive it was a Mojave) changed my mind. Would have killed and eaten him, but the bucks were a mere 500 yards away. Not worth the .40 shell it would have taken!

Something I have always wondered about when I see them in a pile like this.

They crawl all over each other and never seem to bite or to get bitten.

But, stick your arm or hand in the pile and you would probably get ate up.

Wonder how they tell the difference between another snake and an arm or hand. Or foot and leg.

Could it be professional courtesy that they don't bite one another?

Saw my first one this week while hunting in eastern MT. We went to take the dog for a swim as we just pulled into town. There were some big rocks down by the Yellowstone and I went to throw a stick for the dog. Heard what I thought to be grasshoppers then realized they all died when as its been freezing in the mornings. Looked down and about 12 inches away was a small rattler by my leg. I did the freakout dance and spun around like a ballerina to get away from it. My buddy grabbed the dog and threw it in the truck and found a nice big stick but it was already gone.

Living in Alaska my whole life there are a few things I need to watch for here in Montana

Killed a small one about an hour ago.on my carport.It WAS about 18in. long,big head.Had been working under truck all afternoon,Wonder how long it had been there?

My buddy ran over a 2 foot rattler with his front wheel on the ATV. He didn't know it was there until I saw the snake strike. The only reason the bite did not connect was due to the tire restricting its full extension. The snake angled outside and around the running board on the ATV and came within inches of hitting his leg, all within a split second. One of the most amazing rattler strikes I have ever seen.