Watch your feet and hands, folks!

[pirate ammo]

Think so today but both before I left Pa. in 1999 I had killed tens of those rattle worms. Went back to my camp in Centre Co. in 2006 and got another. Now I literally battle them each year putting in food plots at my place in Georgia. Here from last year. Most always deal with one or more each year. I have one solution and this is it. Note the boots. Would not take a step in the Georgia woods without them.

fullsizeoutput_ec1 by Larry Malinoski, on Flickr

northwest florida,south alabama,south georiga,,biggest diamond backs in the world,,PERIOD,,

 

[AckleymanII]

They do taste like chicken.

 

[370bc]

I have eaten rattle snake before and it does taste pretty good!
Several years ago a working buddy of mine was in CO archery hunting elk in his socks. He got bit by a tick that gave him lime disease. He's been in a wheelchair ever since. I don't go into the woods anymore between May and September. Too many critters in there that I don't get along with!!

 

[JRS]

A bite could run upwards of $37,000 as the anti venom is $10,000 per vile.

Copper head bites are horrible in tissue destruction.

Most of the cost is from hospital markup. Hospitals pay roughly $2,300 per vial.

 

[MrMajestic]

Sorry guys please don't think any less of me but snakes don't bother me, now hornets that's another story!

 

[JSH]

My dad was scared to death of snakes all of them. I have seen him empty a 97 on one no bigger than a pencil. Mom would get mad about the big,dead divets in the yard. Never could understand killing somthing ya can kill with a stick. And it wasn't dead if it was still moving.

Hornets and wasp, even bumble bees three biddies and I would go stir them up armed with tennis and badminton rackets,lol.
Ticks, we have them SOBs all year any more.
Then the damn sketters carry disease to.

So what's a guy to do, stay in the house

I said the heck with all of it years ago, though I am more careful about bugs than I used to be.

 

[FFEMT]

My father in law swore there was only one real snake, the "Copper Headed Rattle Moccasins". I watched him either scream like a sissy girl as he was running away or take a shovel and cut a 10" garter snake into about 25 pieces.....

 

[Steve morgan]

Don't you have to have some special permit to kill those things in Pa.?

Only permit I will ever have will be 12Ga.

 

[HillBilly98]

Those are some sure nuff big copper head cobra rattlers. It may be against the law to Kill a rattler but it’s probably against the law to change my britches in public too lol.

We have some timber rattlers here and it makes you want to give up bow hunting for sure. Glad you didn’t get bit man

 

[nicholst55]

Rattlesnakes were so common in Yuma, AZ that they scarcely rated a mention. I had three in our yard in 18 months - that I know of. They tell me that there are 13 species of rattlesnakes in AZ, and that 6 of them live in Yuma County. Most of the ones I saw were pretty small, but I still won't abide them.

 

[hoz53]

Was out trimming some shooting lanes yesterday afternoon and had a close encounter of the copperhead kind. Only grace and Danner boots prevented a trip to the hospital.
I normally watch the ground pretty closely for these rascals, but just did not see this heifer until she was attached to my pants leg about ankle high...took the picture just before reducing her to a hole in the ground with a sweetgum limb...37 inches long and about the diameter of my wrist.View attachment 1060156

That thing sure blends in. I doubt I’d see it either.

 

[outasite`08]

My two favorite snakes are the dead and the dying.I worked for a power co. in Centre County,PA for 40 years and became really handy with a shovel to dispatch snakes living in and around pad mount transformers.We would open the trans up and be greeted to copperheads,rattlesnakes or huge blacksnakes, all with a bit of attitude.That would be corrected with a couple of good wacks about the head and shoulders.And that is why I like winter.

 

[msinc]

Most of the cost is from hospital markup. Hospitals pay roughly $2,300 per vile.

That would put it right in line then for the way they operate.....aspirin cost you about $40.00 each, baby diapers are about $69.00 a piece. People bawl about Trump being rich...one day hospitals and Arabs will have all the money!!!
Just imagine if the gun industry worked this way...it would cost us about $30,000.00 to find out a Model 700 will shoot a four inch group!!!! Each shot would be about $150.00

Yinz killed a big one!

That aint all....yinz killed a dangerous one too!!! That snake can accurately strike at least half the length of his body!! Copperheads are not accurate strikers, that's why they pretty much have to be stepped on.

 

[pirate ammo]

My two favorite snakes are the dead and the dying.I worked for a power co. in Centre County,PA for 40 years and became really handy with a shovel to dispatch snakes living in and around pad mount transformers.We would open the trans up and be greeted to copperheads,rattlesnakes or huge blacksnakes, all with a bit of attitude.That would be corrected with a couple of good wacks about the head and shoulders.And that is why I like winter.

last one I dealt with,grabbed it up threw in the middle of the road , watched a tractor-trailer smash it as it was coming to me,,guess it didn't like the other side,

 

[varmintshooter]

I spend a fair amount of time in the field but have never seen a copperhead or rattler, and would like to keep it that way.

 

[2506]

Glad you did not get bitten. When I was about 12 or 13 years old my Dad and I went squirrel hunting one morning. It was just light enough to see where we were going. We had just walked into the woods and were walking side by side. I caught movement on the ground right in front of my Dad and quicker than Matt Dillon could draw and shoot I snapped my double barrel 20 ga down and blasted a copper head in mid strike blowing his head off. Dad grabbed me and jerked my gun out of my hands and was about to thrash me because he thought I had been negligent and simply discharged my gun until I showed him the dead snake that would have got him if I did not shoot it. We both had to sit down and get our nerves in tact before going on hunting. There is only two kinds of snakes that bother me, live ones and dead ones. The dead ones don't bother me as much as the live ones so I try to make them all DEAD ONES.

 

[GaryL1959]

I spend a fair amount of time in the field but have never seen a copperhead or rattler, and would like to keep it that way.

Thaks everyone . I spend quite a bit of time out and about also, and don't see very many snakes at all. Snakes in general don't bother me much. I'll catch a black snake, rat snake, etc. in a heartbeat and relocate them to my barn to keep rats amd mice in check. I was actively looking the other afternoon when I ran across / into that one, but just did not see it until it was basically too late. The camouflage is just that good on the dang things. I think if people only knew how many times or how close they've been to being bitten, and never knew the snake was there...well, most would never go outside.
Like I said above, thank GOD and good boots, since that's the only things that prevented a bad situation.

 

[NorCalMikie]

That thing sure blends in. I doubt I’d see it either.

Neighbor Lady called for help. Had a Rattle Snake in her yard. Came in from the Vineyard behind her house. Her dog found it and was having fits. She didn't want her dog bit so she called me to "get rid of it".
It had crawled under her shed so she threw a gopher bomb under the shed.
Snake didn't come out so she kept the dog in the house for a while.
Maybe 45 minutes later she called me again. Snake came out and she watched it from the bedroom window. I stood there for about 10 minutes looking at it before I could see it. Finally saw it and got rid of it with my .410. Don't remember if it finally moved or I was just able to see it. Perfect natural camo. Cut it's head off, kept the rattle, buried the head and threw the body back over the fence for the critters. It was gone the next day.
Havn't seen another one in the last few years. Vineyard gets the disk treatment quite often so that might help?

Mom would tell me about her father, when being out and around, wearing "stove pipes" on his lower legs to keep from getting bit from Rattle Snakes. He could hear the "DING" from the snakes hitting the stove pipes.

 

[VaRandy]

Thaks everyone . I spend quite a bit of time out and about also, and don't see very many snakes at all. Snakes in general don't bother me much. I'll catch a black snake, rat snake, etc. in a heartbeat and relocate them to my barn to keep rats amd mice in check. I was actively looking the other afternoon when I ran across / into that one, but just did not see it until it was basically too late. The camouflage is just that good on the dang things. I think if people only knew how many times or how close they've been to being bitten, and never knew the snake was there...well, most would never go outside.
Like I said above, thank GOD and good boots, since that's the only things that prevented a bad situation.

My closest call was when my older cousin suggested a race to a community swimming pool when I was about 14. He took the high road and I took the lower one which included a creek. I was hauling ass and did a great broad jump across the creek and zeroed in on movement on the far bank (my landing zone). I remember thinking it was a strange animal, part snake but not a snake. It was a 5 foot Copperhead in strike mode waiting for me to land and he had a large green frog halfway down his throat. I landed 6 inches away and did the worlds quickest hop to the side which is when I figured what it actually was. I tried to kill him but only had brittle tree limbs to whack him with. He spit the poor frog out by spitting him about 15 feet. Snake got away since I had no proper wood or rocks to take him out. Wanted to save the frog but he didn't look so good!

 

[Someoldguy]

My father in law swore there was only one real snake, the "Copper Headed Rattle Moccasins". I watched him either scream like a sissy girl as he was running away or take a shovel and cut a 10" garter snake into about 25 pieces.....

Must be a regional thing. Around here, they.are called 'Rattle-Headed-Copper-Moccasins'.

Whatever they are, a shovel is employed to sever them into multiple parts, just as you describe. The shrill screaching from a grown man seems to be another common reaction.