Anyone step on a rattler?

[Rem06]

LOL, Good Post!

ALMOST!

Drop port (on here) and I were Pronghorn hunting Wyoming and were warned of the Prarie rattlers were out in the high country. We heard alot of what we called cicadas. . Next thing i know is looking down at my feet and saw one coiled up and ready to strike! I remember ABLA..bLAA..BLAA,DA LALALLAAAA...ETC coming out of my mouth and jumping 3' over a sage bush!!! then looking for help from Drop port and seeing him in tears laughing so hard over what he just saw and he said that was the funniest thing i ever saw in my life LOL!

i swallowed my heart out of my throat and wiped off the sweat..all was well.

 

[CharlieNC]

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.

 

[boltfluter]

Had a unique experience Rock Chuck hunting about 10 yrs ago. Hunting and hiking along the rim rocks of a big canyon in southern Idaho . Walking along the rocks and my next step, which I had committed to, would land me right on top of a sunning Great Basin rattler! So in mid stride, I somehow leapt in the air and cleared the snake, with feet to spare. Counted 10 rattlers that day in less than a mile. Apparently there was a big den down in the rock slides below. I did manage to point my toes for extra style points. Good times!!

Paul

 

[msinc]

Yep, have stepped on two and was lucky both times. I made a necklace out of the first ones rattles, that was 40 years ago when I was just a boy. Did this to the recent one, mainly so folks that visit can see what they look like:

That's the front door of my hunting cabin. I will say one thing about "steppin' on a rattler" or just rattlesnakes in general...they don't sound like what you hear on tv. That noise is some idiot shaking a maraca. 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, I thought it was a cicada and so I failed to heed the warning.
I see one every time I go to my cabin in the spring and I leave them alone. I have never had a mouse problem there.
I have one hunting buddy that wont go back...he had three encounters in one day when we were building the cabin and he really don't like snakes...one resulted in a pretty good hit to his boot. He hasn't been back since.

 

[GaryL1959]

I got tangled up with a copperhead last summer, probably walked over it 4 or 5 time dragging brush while clearing a food plot. Felt something on my leg, thought I was tangled up in vines or briars til I looked down. Heifer had her fangs hung up in the cuff seam of my blue jeans....didn't take long to figure out what those 3 inch sweet gum saplings I was cutting were good for..you can beat a copperhead to a pulp with a sweetgum sprout!

 

[jds holler]

I got tore up pretty bad one time when I was "rock hopping" down on the Klamath River. It's a rocky, snakey, great fishing river, that has busted more than a few legs.

I was pretty much committed to landing on what I thought was a decent spot, and realized there was a snake there. Would love to see a film of my mid-air contortions, and crash landing. My knees, elbows, skull, and just about every bony protrusion on my body took a beating. I'd have been better off getting bit. jd

 

[jonkeil243]

That's pretty rare, but happens. Killed one about 3' that had the blunt tail and no sign it ever had any rattles. We'd be in trouble, if that became a dominant trait.

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.

 

[msinc]

WV old timers carried Snake weed in their pouch.

You might want to explain this SPJ.......it's not anything like horny goat weed is it???

 

[Shawnba67]

Was wade fishing once and had a foot long water snake end up under my foot inside my shoe!
No real danger and the water rinsed the piss away pretty quickly, but was a real startle!

 

[Rem06]

You might want to explain this SPJ.......it not anything like horny goat weed is it???

googling it, sounds like a blend of grasses to absorb venom ?

 

[eas1949]

I was golfing at Sierra Estrella is Arizona. On the back 9 I almost stepped on a 3 footer sunning himself. I whapped him on the head with a 1 wood and finished him off with a sand wedge. Sent his head flying off into the rough. I hung him on my golf pull cart and as we passed the golfers on the front nine I told them there were hundreds on the back nine lurking around the greens.

 

[msinc]

googling it, sounds like a blend of grasses to absorb venom ?

I thought he was talkin' about chewing tobacco....that's what I always heard the old timers put on a bite. Hell, John Wayne did it so it has to work!!!
Little store about 10 miles from my cabin sells it by the pound out of a dispenser I have never seen before. Pull the handle and it pukes out a pound of chew into a zip lock bag. That is how the local folks buy it. I don't know anyone that can eat a pound of that schitt at a time, but okay.

 

[yotehater]

I thought I had stepping outside barefooted. After almost killing myself to get away I saw it was only a cicada.

 

[Uthink Uknow]

You mess with my wife and you’ll wish you just tangled with a rattler. I give her a lot of room when she’s been stepped on.

 

[Lee in Texas]

I almost stepped on one in the dark 3 or 4 years ago. I had never seen one in the wild. It didn't sound like what I thought it would. I hauled ass, then shined my van headlights at it to get a look. It was big boy. I got a really poor quality pic.

That rattle has a lot of segments. It also looks like he has a pretty big meal inside. Maybe a squirrel. I thought about going inside to grab a shotgun, but decided against it.

 

[dsculley]

Have never been struck myself, but my son was working an internship position on a deer/quail ranch near Hebbronville, TX. The first morning he was issued a pair of snake chaps. There was a lot of old fencing on the place they were pulling out. He was struck twice while working on the fences.

 

[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".