Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Hey, look at me. I'm big and mean

...and a real badass.
I ran across this little guy this morning when I was on a training hike with my llamas. He was about 3' long at the most. He sure tried to play big and mean, though. He didn't rattle but 2 out of 3 of these that I've seen don't rattle. It's a Western rattler, a subspecies of the Prairie or Great Plaines rattler.
My phone doesn't take very clear photos so it's a tad blurry.

Where’s “the after” pic?

lol


Should look like a ball of hamburger meat.

Yeah- blame it on the phone....

I do.

Do llamas bite?

Make a good hatband - a bit too small for a belt.

I am all for conservation and knowing that snakes have a purpose in nature and all that. But I don't think i could keep myself from killing every single one of those fuggers I came close to.

Do they not rattle? Or are you like me and just can't hear it?

Was crawling under a fence near Hardy Arkansas a few years back when my son urgently said "STOP"!
The fence had grown up in trees and there was a timber rattler buzzing for all he was worth about 2 feet from my head in the roots of a tree. I could see his tail blurring. My son could hear it from 12-15 feet away. I didn't hear it at all...

What he said!

On a side note, to Rock Chuck's comment about 2 of 3 not rattling...they're seeing that more often. The logic being the ones that rattle get killed so the ones that don't are passing that trait to the next generation. Scary, as I had one a Prarie Rattler swim by me at one if my fishing holes this weekend.

I heard a theory that hogs had been acting as predators on snakes so the snakes have stopped rattling in response. Learned response in a snake seems a bit of a long shot maybe but.....

I HATE those basterds. Kill everyone I see or hear.
If not for me, for the gun dogs that might find them.

I watched his tail carefully and didn't see it shake at all. He didn't even try.
I usually don't bother them. Shortly before seeing him, I had a young buck antelope jog across the trail in front of me. Then he turned around and 'jogged' back in a blur, way too fast to get my camera out.

Or someones kid.

This

How did you get out if that?

I use to give rattlers a break if they weren’t near the house, until I lost a good dog. Now I kill them all on sight.

Where there's one...,
I hope you killed it. Fuggers can strike further than you think.

Did the llamas alert you to it?

No. I was leading and it was in the trail ahead of me. I used my trekking pole to shoosh it out of the way. The llamas just ignored it as I led them around it. I don't know what they would have done if it had rattled. I've seen rattlers a few times before when hiking with them and I don't remember any of them rattling.

I kill every one I can possibly kill, with no remorse.

6 or 8 years ago, my wife and I were boat camping on the shore of a reservoir near here. We just threw out a tarp and slept in the open. The next morning after daybreak, we took a walk along the shore and found a rattler about 100 yds from camp. Since then, you will NOT get that woman to camp out without a tent. Can't be done.