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Killed a rattler

Started by GATreeGrower, April 14, 2013, 05:52:38 PM

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Sonofman

The only good poisonous snake is a dead one. If it is not poisonous, I will usually let it go.

I saw a picture of a guy holding a rattler one time. The caption said he(the guy) was 6' tall. He had both elbows braced against his ribs with his hands out and upturned. The snake was across his hands. The head and about a foot of the snake was on the ground, the tail and about a foot was on the ground, the rest draped across his hands. It had to be at least 12 feet long. This is no tall tale. The snake's head was bigger than both the guy's fists held together.
Located due west of Due West.

Tree Feller

I was driving one afternoon on I-10 just West of Sonora, TX once when I saw up ahead what I thought was a log across the L/H Westbound lane. Then I realized that there were few trees big enough to make a log out there. It was a huge rattler.  When I passed it, it's head was already off the pavement but the tail and rattlers were still in the R/H lane.  I got partially on the shoulder to avoid running over it. I was driving a Ford Explorer and was scared to run over the thing. I think it was the biggest snake I've ever seen.   
Cody

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Ken

Quote from: Tree Feller on April 16, 2013, 09:23:49 PM
I was driving one afternoon on I-10 just West of Sonora, TX once when I saw up ahead what I thought was a log across the L/H Westbound lane. Then I realized that there were few trees big enough to make a log out there. It was a huge rattler.  When I passed it, it's head was already off the pavement but the tail and rattlers were still in the R/H lane.  I got partially on the shoulder to avoid running over it. I was driving a Ford Explorer and was scared to run over the thing. I think it was the biggest snake I've ever seen.   

I would have made a point of running over it.  Maybe a few times if that is what it took to squash it properly. 
Lots of toys for working in the bush

OneWithWood

Some years ago Linnea, my dog Smoke, and I came up on a timber rattler easily the size of the one in the truck bed.  It blended into to background so well that the only reason we saw it was the dog barking at it.  Timber rattlers are becoming increasingly rare around here.  I have mixed feelings about that.
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Wudman

Now the feds are considering listing the eastern diamondback under the Endangered Species Act.  We have been asked to participate in a survey anytime we see one.  I responded that if I see one, I was going to give him a bus ticket back to Georgia, because he is lost.

Wudman
"You may tear down statues and burn buildings but you can't kill the spirit of patriots and when they've had enough this madness will end."
Charlie Daniels
July 4, 2020 (2 days before his death)

Claybraker

Quote from: Texas Ranger on April 15, 2013, 03:51:12 PM
I think the pygmy, along with copper heads, bother me the most, small enough to be unnoticed just laying there.

Most folks are smart enough not to pick up a decent sized rattler. Not so with the Pygmy.

There's a hunting/fishing/drinking/card playing etc. lodge on the Ga coast called Cabin Bluff. It dates back to the twenties, and oozes history, with photographs on the walls of previous guests in knee boots, tweed jackets, fine English made doubles, dog handlers and piles of game. You know the type.

There's no shortage of poisionous reptiles, I darned near stepped on a cottonmouth at the sporting clays course.

There is also a sorta strange layout golf course, with a half dozen or so fairways, another half dozen greens and a few different tee boxes. Several small ponds, including one full of bream that go silly over a #12 hopper pattern.

As you can imagine, they get more than their fair share of guests from among a population of folks that ain't from around here. Many of those want to try out the course, so they grab their clubs, or borrow some from the pro-shop, hop in a cart and give it a go. Even folks that don't appreciate gr*ts are smart enough not to run over a gator with a golf gart, but they've had 2 incidents in the last couple of years when people went to retrieve a golf ball, and while they were bent over decided to pick up that interesting snake laying there. After all, it's just a small snake, looks perfectly harmless. ::)

Wudman

Quote from: Claybraker on April 17, 2013, 12:17:18 PM
Quote from: Texas Ranger on April 15, 2013, 03:51:12 PM
I think the pygmy, along with copper heads, bother me the most, small enough to be unnoticed just laying there.

There's a hunting/fishing/drinking/card playing etc. lodge on the Ga coast called Cabin Bluff. It dates back to the twenties, and oozes history, with photographs on the walls of previous guests in knee boots, tweed jackets, fine English made doubles, dog handlers and piles of game. You know the type.


You happen to know Steve Davis?  I worked with him a few years back.  He was a forester on Cabin Bluff.  I'm not sure if he still manages it or not.  One of the biggest issues there was with the hogs. 

Wudman
"You may tear down statues and burn buildings but you can't kill the spirit of patriots and when they've had enough this madness will end."
Charlie Daniels
July 4, 2020 (2 days before his death)

Claybraker

Nope, did he work for Mead/Westvaco?

They've got sorta a love/hate relationship with hogs. They tear up a bunch of stuff, even with a fence and cattle guard at the main compound one will sneak in and the night watchman will have to dispatch it with a suppressed .22.

OTOH, folks that don't know any better will pay big money to come shoot a pig. Here's the the people from Eotech the morning after an outing:
http://cabinbluff.com/blog/2011/10/hog-hunting-at-cabin-bluff
Judging from the poor numbers, either they got tired of shooting, or somebody got tired of dragging hogs out of the woods. :)

Dodgy Loner

Saw this guy walking through the woods this morning. He was kind enough to rattle before I got to him, because I was looking up at the trees and walking straight towards him. Timber rattler, about 5 feet long.

"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey." -John Ruskin

Any idiot can write a woodworking blog. Here's mine.

beenthere

Looks like you've been feeding him well. Is he still slithering about?
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

Dodgy Loner

I'll kill a venomous snake if it's in my yard. Out in the woods, I leave them alone. That's where they're supposed to be.
"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey." -John Ruskin

Any idiot can write a woodworking blog. Here's mine.

Sonofman

I agree Dodgy, it just seems that the snakes around here have a hard time deciding with where the woods leave off and my yard starts.

I also fail to see where the lack of poisonous snakes is a bad thing. If they decrease, there will be more rats and mice and the numbers of non poisonous and other predators will increase.

I just hope the government does not take a hand like they did around here when some mental pygmy decided the lack of coyotes needed to be corrected.
Located due west of Due West.

Dodgy Loner

I've killed two copperheads in my backyard in the last year and didn't think twice about it. I have an 18-month-old daughter who plays back there and I'm not going to take that risk. But I really don't mind them out in the woods. I think they are very cool animals and I actually enjoy seeing them. I just like it more when I see them before I'm one step away! I know I'm kind of weird like that, but going to forestry school with a bunch of wildlife majors will do that do you :)
"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey." -John Ruskin

Any idiot can write a woodworking blog. Here's mine.

OneWithWood

I agree with you about the snakes, Dodgy.  I actually wish I would see a timber rattler again (before I stepped on it or reached for something too close to it) :o
One With Wood
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Corley5

Massasauga rattlesnakes are the only venomous snake in Michigan.  I've never seen one and hope I never do.  http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10370_12145_12201-32995--,00.html
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

ely

jeff, can we close this thread down please? :o

celliott

I guess Vermont technically does have venomous snakes. There is a very very small localized population of timber rattlesnakes down south near the Massachusetts border. Still far enough away from me though!
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Fla._Deadheader


Shoot fire, down here, we have Fer de Lance. They get into the chicken coop, into my workshop, and are always killed by field workers with big weed whackers. They love to curl up under lumber piles and such. More deadly than Rattlers.

I even had to kill a Coral snake, going across the concrete floor where I had been working not 5 minutes before.

In case y'all don't know, Coral Snakes are in the Cobra family. Their bite will paralyze you, before you can get help, if you are away from people or civilization.  ;D
All truth passes through three stages:
   First, it is ridiculed;
   Second, it is violently opposed; and
   Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

okmulch

I have only seen one that big here but a place we were working on last summer we ran into 12 of them. I am sure there were more, thankfully we did not see them. Here are a few. 

 


 


 
I would not kill them either if they would go to the places we have allready cleaned cedars up,but they keep coming up around the equipment and I do not like that.  :D
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DanG

Quote from: Sonofman on April 17, 2013, 06:58:44 PM

I also fail to see where the lack of poisonous snakes is a bad thing. If they decrease, there will be more rats and mice and the numbers of non poisonous and other predators will increase.

The farmers in SW Georgia learned about that the hard way.  About 50 years ago, they established an annual "Rattlesnake Roundup" in that area and made a local festival of it.  They were paying $1 a foot for rattlers, and they were captured by the thousands.  After a few years of that, the area was almost overrun with rats and rabbits, which wreaked havoc on the field crops.  The lesson here is that everything in nature has its purpose, no matter if we find it inconvenient.  I have yet to divine the purpose of the mosquito though, unless it is just to keep us humble. ;)
"I don't feel like an old man.  I feel like a young man who has something wrong with him."  Dick Cavett
"Beat not thy sword into a plowshare, rather beat the sword of thine enemy into a plowshare."

Mooseherder

If someone can find a useful purpose for fireants I'm all ears. ;)

cuterz

That is a big one. I can't stand snakes.

mesquite buckeye

Arizona is home to something like 13 species of rattlesnakes and one kind of coral snake, one poisonous lizard (gila monster) the most poisonous scorpion in North America.

I talked with the snakes and we have an agreement. They don't bite me and I don't kill any more of them. So far there is peace. I used to just summarily kill our giant centipedes, also poisonous, but one day I saw one carrying off a burn worm, a stinging caterpillar. Now they are my friends. Just never know.

My wife has a different postion, having lost one dog (two bitten), a horse and several cattle. She likes them less than I do and will not tolerate them, although I can see her point.

We used to have to move them at a nature park I worked at, sometimes several in a day. Most were pretty mellow, but some were so nasty they would bite themselves trying to get me. Then they became more relaxed. I don't think it killed them, just messed them up. Only had one person bitten there in over 20 years, and had over 100 snakes in about 50 acres. Did help to keep the rats down.
Manage 80 acre tree farm in central Missouri and Mesquite timber and about a gozillion saguaros in Arizona.

DanG

Quote from: Mooseherder on April 22, 2013, 07:38:33 PM
If someone can find a useful purpose for fireants I'm all ears. ;)

Mh, ants are farty little rascals(you hafta listen closely), and are the largest producers of Methane, a greenhouse gas.  They may be the only thing standing between us and an ice age. ;D
"I don't feel like an old man.  I feel like a young man who has something wrong with him."  Dick Cavett
"Beat not thy sword into a plowshare, rather beat the sword of thine enemy into a plowshare."

Mooseherder

Well, that does it.
If someone has to stand against something, then my archenemy is fireants.
I hates Fireants!
There will be no peace.

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