Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire TIMBER RATTLERS

Walking out of a hunting spot once on a chilly Nov evening near dark once near Goliad, Texas. I hit the RR Track a ways down from my high school car and hoofed it north. I tripped on something big and soft and caught myself and took a few steps before I heard the rattlers slow buzz.

I just kept walking.

Thank you Father in Heaven.

I went out early one morning at the deer lease in Coleman County. Stepped on a rattler about 4 feet long, I had on my snake leggings or I would have been bit. I looked down because something was hitting my foot.

That's honestly when I see them most, in the spring. My buddy had one wake him up while he was nappin under a tree, crawled across the top of his boot laces. I kneeled down next to one setting a turkey decoy out once, used a 5 dollar shell on his ass.

A good friend lost a wonderful dog to a rattlesnake on a trail I sometimes walked. I wish I had run into that snake at an earlier time and my friend would still have her dog. A few years ago I was told that the anti-venom shots for a dog that had been bit ran about $1400. Ouch!

I agree that rattlesnakes have a place in nature. But just not around people or their animals. My barn cats do a good job of keeping down the mice. I don't need any help from rattlesnakes.

years ago my then son in law, originally from california, was on a ridge overlooking a watertank. he yelled he had spotted a really long buzztail. i yelled back kill it. he didn't and proceded to follow it as it worked it's way down the hill towards me. when it got in range i did the six shots of 12guage. He asked me why i killed it? well, if i hadn't, it could bite the cows and horses coming into to drink, or next year when we were walking the area, maybe one of us.
i think kalifornicators are all alike.

Yes, then they are good snakes........................good 'n dead.

They NEVER, EVER get a pass from me.

BIL got bit on the hand by a relatively small one (about 3-4') a few years ago, thought he was gonna lose his arm but he didn't. Was pretty remote where he got bit & took about 3 hours to get him to a hospital in Butte. He was lucky........................

MM

there is a lake just to the north of phoenix called lake pleasant, in the high desert. at low water, these little islands appear. one night a guy was night fishing out of a boat, had to take a dump, couldn't just hang his butt over the side. so he went to the little island in a hurry, ran up on to the shore, and dropped his pants and squatted. right over a coiled rattler. what to do? don't want to get hit in the nads, so he covered them with his hand, which is where he did get hit. Horrible choice to have to make. They like old indian ruins which i do too. sitting on the foundation of an old ruin, and hearing a buzztail shaking his tail at you in the rocks next to you, is not a good feeling. I have really been lucky not getting struck. as in walking in shorts in high dried grass on the desert, you can't see the snake, but he can see you with those thermal sensors, no they don't get a pass.

I had some old clay shooting buddies find one in a river and put it in their john boat to skin later thinking it was dead. Well as that metal floor heated up, so did the snake. Would have been a hoot to see.

Prolly not very funny to those guys, though.....................

MM

I killed a 54” ringtail a couple days ago that was right under my ranch gate. 158gr headache took care of him. I’d sure hate for my 87 year old hard of hearing Grandad or my 3 year old son who doesn’t know better to get nailed by a big rattler.

That's a good nake.

Gotta be real careful sitting in a pop up blind in October archery and Nov deer season in Texas, especially if near any structure. They like to crawl in with you in on cool evenings. They can ruin a good popup.

A big king snake crawled over my boot one evening and almost ruined mine.

There were some sheets of tin roofing scattered around the old dilapidated above ground rock and cement water tank below the windmill that once drained to distant water troughs. I guess it was well fed as the next spring when snake hunting we got 16 rattlers iirc from under those roofing pieces.