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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