Anyone step on a rattler?

[chop house]

The real sound of a rattler is more like the continuous chirp of a cricket. It's faster and higher pitched than what you are familiar with from watching television.
The first time I heard it I didn't realize what it was,

the first and only time i heard it i knew exactly what it was, but that was a l-o-n-g time ago: when i could still hear! my ears might be my biggest liability now...

 

[group therapy]

a couple years ago my wife and I were at my parents getting boxes of stuff (that wound up under an old metal carport) that ended up at their house while we built ours. she had asked me about snakes and I said no worries, to cold and to much activity here. the next box she picked up (while I was looking at her) had a funny feel to it, she screamed and dropped the box. there was a 3 foot copperhead under it all coiled up and she had grabbed the snake with the box. it was like 35 degrees so he didnt do anything and I dispatched him but to this day when we are outside somewhere, she still gives me a look that lets me know she remembers

 

[centerlineseal]

Rock chuck shootin' in Idaho with my son. Shot quite a few on a rock ridge 300 yds out and walked out there to view the carnage. Forgot to pull my earplugs (in instead of my hearing aids). Headed back to the truck, ... when I got there, my son was way off track and made a big circle back. He said I walked thru a patch of ground with several buzzing like hell! I was oblivious and never heard or saw a thing. Luck of the non-Irish!

 

[Downeast]

We get one or two in the yard here in SE NC every year, generally in August. My wife's little Jack Russell was struck and killed a few years back. Rattlers are death on dogs. All of the rattlesnakes in NC are listed as "threatened" but around my house they are listed as "endangered".

 

[chop house]

so cal mojave desert. buddy and i used to like to wander around trying to shoot jacks with ruger mark I's. did this for a couple of years with no incidents. one quiet morning we were walking a two track and i came a step or 2 from one a 'mojave green' buzzing under a chaparral on my side of the 'road'. tried to jump back but my buddy (did i mention he was snake-a-phobic?) was quicker than me and stepped BEHIND me using me as a human shield... while he peaked over my shoulder pushing me forward i struggled to get enough room to step back and bring the muzzle to bear.

i survived, the snake didn't, buddy almost not.

 

[cuznguido]

Out walking in the desert one afternoon near Reno, NV and buddy sat down under a tree to take a break, and was bit on the hand by a small rattlesnake. We took him to Reno Hospital who looked at him and said no big deal. Your arm will turn blackish and then you'll recover.

And that is what happened. His arm turned blackish over the next week or so, and then he recovered. After several weeks had gone by, you'd never know he was bit by a rattler.

Reminds me of a similar thing. Got bit on the forearm by a smallish rattler. Got pretty sore and discolored but I got over it pretty quickly.

 

[jmm03]

fastest I ever saw the old lady move was years ago while we were hiking up in the mountains near Ventura. We both heard the buzzing about the same time and when I turned around to warn her about the snake she was already gone. It was like the old cartoons where the roadrunner changes direction in a puff of dust... I thought it was hilarious, she, not so much.

 

[shoot4fun]

Stepped on a baby rattler once. Spent the rest of my time in that area watching for Mama.
Had a black snake zip between my feet while fishing a private lake once.
Usually snakes don't want to be around you any more than you want to be there with them but a Prairie Rattler got just downright PO'd at me once out in KS. He thought he was 10 feet long and big as a gator I guess but a round of CCI 44 Mag shot calmed him down immediately.

 

[swd]

We had a friend that killed one while out cutting wood. He threw the dead snake in the back of his truck. A couple hours later he reached for something in the back of the truck and dead snake latched on his finger. He had to use a pair of pliers to get it off. Spent a couple weeks in the hospital and was on prednisone for almost a year. He died in his mid 60’s about 15 years after the bite from health problems but I always wondered if that didn’t help him along.

I killed a 14” one by the garden 2 days ago.

 

[msalm]

We don't have to worry too much about rattlesnakes here in WI, there are very few around and I only know a few old timers that have ever seen one many years ago... BUT, my mother did trip over a black bear once in northern WI. We were on a camping trip and she was coming back to our campsite from our friends site where the adults were playing a card game (Sheepshead I'm sure). She tripped and fell over a garbage can in the trail in the dark...with a bear halfway inside of it. She ran screaming back to the friends camper and didn't come back to our site till the next morning.

 

[Toby Bradshaw]

I've never killed a snake of any kind, but have caught plenty of them. This is a Pacific rattler in the Okanogan. They were out by the dozens that day.

 

[s100whunter]

I hunted snakes for 20 years,yes Ihave had some close calls my partner was bitten twice .I have quit,snakes are getting too fast.I live in N Tex,there some very large dens here . WHen we would bass dens we noticed a lot of mice commingled out with the snakes and a lot of the snakes had there rattlers chewed off.

 

[Just Say Moe]

I heard a couple of reports, one first hand from the man who was bitten, that the anti venom injection costs $40,000! And that was five years ago.

Costs about $5K/vial with the dose anywhere from 1-12 vials depending on how much venom was delivered. A real pharmacy budget killer - I loathed drunk good old boys picking up snakes to show off then show up in the ER with a bite - and no insurance. One goober actually tried to pick it up twice - and got bit in each hand.

 

[Willie]

I think it may be the dominate trait now. We have killed several around this area and they never rattled and would not rattle messing with them before dispatching. I have spoke to the snake round up folks at the trophy hunters and was told it was becoming a issue. Did not believe it and followed up with the 2 game wardens both said it is now becoming the dominate trait. They both said the trait before was recessive to not rattle. Humans by killing the noisy ones let the quiet ones survive to breed. My mom was almost bit by one of the quiet ones and saved by a dog who jumped in between.
We have seen plenty with plenty broken rattles but not any yet with none. Can see the natural progression.

Interesting, though quite a difference between broken rattles and absence of rattle base. I don't look forward to seeing more "quiet rattlers", in the future.

 

[Eric Leonard]

One almost got me carrying a Summit Viper in to hand before bow season a couple years ago..

 

[TheOtherZilla]

Never stepped on one, BUT, I did sit on one

 

[Chocdawg]

Saw this critter in the Florida Everglades, wow! At first I thought it was a large tree branch in the road, until it moved. His maximum girth was bigger than my forearm. He left the road unharmed. Either a eagle or gator will make short work of him.

 

[jds holler]

I think I've told this story here before, but might as well tell it again for this thread.

My bud Mike and I were down on the Klamath one evening after work to catch some sundown rainbows. It was one of those days when for whatever reason the snakes were really out. We found a fresh dead one that someone else had killed, and I had to shove Mike off of the trail to prevent him from walking within inches of one that was laying butt-high on a rock. I killed that one with my Single Six, and then a little later, another one. We fished until it was getting dim enough that we didn't want to stay longer, and headed down river on what passes for a trail.

Since I had a gun, I was in front, and being pretty careful. About that time, -- ZOTT!! I got nailed on the back of my calf, and knew instantly that I'd been bit. I jumped away from the spot, and was trying both to grab my leg, and spot the snake. Tried to tell Mike that I was bit, and to get back, and noticed that he wasn't very shook up. Also noticed that he was holding a fair sized stick -- almost like a spear. THAT BASTARD!!

He had stabbed me in the back of the leg hard enough to draw blood, and was starting to show a pretty evil grin.

I didn't shoot him, but it was close. jd

 

[Cecil S.]

Killed a Rattler in Tennessee during Turkey season one year 7ft 11 rattles and a button fangs where 1 3/4" after skinning the skin was 10 1/2 inches mid section. Snake boots are a must in the Cumberland Valley.

 

[Eric Leonard]

We were cutting tobacco one hot summer day and I cut a plant and there was a monster rattler up under it on the shade, I high tailed it back a decent ways and one of my Grandmothers brothers grabbed it by the tail and popped it like a bull whip and its head popped off and we never found it...my Uncle was 6 3 and when he held the snake up over his head it touched the ground..

That was in Jackson Co Tn 1980