Author Topic: Rattlesnake Bite  (Read 17799 times)

Offline Marshal'ette Halloway

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Rattlesnake Bite
« on: October 01, 2005, 09:52:00 AM »
We have rattlesnakes and copperheads all over the place here in the Flint Hills of Elk County.
I have many many times been in the pastures riding my horses, clearing rocks out of places or hunting and seen copperhead's
and several times "heard" a rattler ..letting me know that he was there and giving me time to back off and out of his area.
 And I did too.. Didn't have to rattle at me more than once. lol
Stepped out of a friends back door one time and one was stretched out right under the steps on the porch. That sucker coiled up in a flash and started  his rattle dance.. but not more than I did. I danced with fancy footwork like I have never danced before. :D

Here is a link that will convince you, if you already aren't... to give these critters plenty of breathin' room.
*contents of pictures are not for the squimish*

http://www.rattlesnakebite.org/rattlesnakepics.htm
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Offline Qball

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2005, 10:10:43 AM »
 :o :o :o
Thank God we don't have rattlers in Sweden :o
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Offline RRio

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #2 on: October 01, 2005, 10:17:11 AM »
They are nasty, I hate their guts and livers and no problems or remorse what-so-ever in promptly dispatching their a---- straight to hell with a double dose of 12 gauge scattergun.

Sorry to sugar coat it, but that's the way I feel on that subject.


(Sorry, Marshal'ette & Marshal, I get slightly emotional about rattlebugs.)
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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #3 on: Today at 01:48:18 AM »

Offline Arcey

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #3 on: October 01, 2005, 10:46:13 AM »
Had an ole boy what werked for me in patrol just after I made Sergeant.  He'd lost most of his index finger and midde finger just below the first joint due to a rattlesnake bite.

Used to be funny.  He'd get 'im a drunk driver, stick that hand out 'n ask 'How many fingers am I holdin' up?'

Stops this young sailor one mornin'.  I'm close when I heard 'im call in so I go by.  He pulls the 'fingers' trick.  The boy was probably a Specialist of some sort.  Looks hard 'n answers, 'I'd say 2.75, sir.'

Back then, I was real particular 'bout my uniform.  If I hadn't been. I'd ah been rollin' 'round on the shoulder ah the road.........
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Offline Marshal'ette Halloway

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #4 on: October 01, 2005, 10:55:50 AM »
 I am not the least bit shy about "blasting them"  either Rio.

We also have a water, river snake that is aggressive and nasty as all get out.
 I'll set on the banks and shoot them with my 22 rifle when we are out camping or fishing.
It's quite a challenge when they are swimming across and you only have their head as a target.

We found out that ya' better hit them tho..
 One time we were fishing out of the boat..seen one , so I layed my pole down...and I had my pistol, so I popped off a round,
and missed and shot again, and got him in the back end. All that did was make him mad as hell and
 he turned around and started swimming back towards us and the boat. I was so surprised to see that that I didn't
get another shot off. He actually came up over the back of the boat by the motor, and was literally coming after us.
 Never seen anything like it. There were 3 of us in the boat.. One guy bailed out.. LOL
I hightailed it to the front ( and was ready to jump) and Mark, my husband.. grabbed the oar and pinned him down,
took the needle nose pliers we used to retreive swallowed hooks.. pinched his head in those and cut off his head.
Damn! It was a $10,000 funniest home video..  :D
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Offline tarheel mac

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #5 on: October 01, 2005, 11:05:09 AM »
I ain't too crazy about rattlers, or cottonmouths either...(my personal bogey man amonst the "snake people"...) and I know for a fact that all rattlesnakes don't always rattle before striking neither..so in their country, it's a good idea to watch where you put your feet....but basically I have a "non-agression" pact with them...they leave me alone, I leave them alone...

Offline RRio

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #6 on: October 01, 2005, 11:14:09 AM »
When I first came to the desert in 1974, I met up with a pard that would eventually turn out to be one of my best friends and cowboy mentor. Bob was a half Lakota (what a half Lakota was doing in AZ is a whole 'nother story) and had a small horse ranch'ette north of Phoenix.
I would almost always spent the whole weekends there. Well, 'ol Bob used to keep about 4 or 5 rattlers in a cut down 55 gallon drum, and would "milk" them ever so often, then sell the venom to U of AZ in Tucson.

Now at this time of my life, I was just about the heaviest I have ever been at 245 lbs. and 5' 10".

One Saturday morning, after coffee, Bob decides he needs to "milk" the snakes. He reaches in to get one, and did not get a good hold of it, and it was able to clip Bob's thumb, and he drops the snake on the ground.

Now the only way for me to get away from it was over a 6' fence that Bob had between the corral and the house.

Bob said he had never seen a 6 foot fat man climb a fence so fast, in all of his life. He swore that I was over the fence before the snake hit the ground. I don't doubt it.
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Offline Delmonico

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #7 on: October 01, 2005, 11:14:54 AM »
I've been known to do in a few, we have a few rattlers in our are, copperheads are there but rare.  

The one I don't like is a black racer, most simply call them blacksnakes, non-poision but agressive and a constrictor.  They like old buildings and hold there ground, had one thought it owned the outhouse and scared a friends wife to death one day.  

We were shotgunless that day, but headed out with pistols in hand.  I got cornered between a tree and the outhouse, I pointed cock and fired that fast.  Yep Ol' Elmer was right, they will aline themselves up with the muzzle cause it lost it's head clean.  It would have been around 7 foot with it's head on.

Most snake bites happen though with someone sayin' watch this I can catch it. ;D
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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #8 on: October 01, 2005, 11:26:03 AM »

VIETNAM - 1962:  We were on patrol somewhere North of Cam Rahn Bay.  We'd been in the bush for three days with our Vietnamese guides.  We made camp for the night and settled in.  I tossed my poncho on the ground and covered myself with the liner.  The next morning I was awakened by one of our guides and he woke me by nudging me with the muzzle of a shotgun saying "Roll left...Roll left".
I didn't know what the heck he was up to.  I thought he was a Charlie and was about to do me in!  Not wanting to make any false moves...I very quickly rolled left.  The shotgun spoke!  The end result was a very dead Green Pit Viper that had slithered in under my poncho liner and had snuggled up next to me for warmth.  Our guide dispatched the snake.  These critters are very deadly!

That's my "up close and personal" snake story.

Offline tarheel mac

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #9 on: October 01, 2005, 11:55:14 AM »
Yep, AR, I had a few close calls with those green meanies over there myself...they certainly ain't shy!

Offline Doc Shapiro

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #10 on: October 01, 2005, 12:02:49 PM »
We were at a match of the Potomac Rangers not long after they were founded.  Showed up early to help setup.  I was talking with a couple guys in the parking lot and my wife was hunkered down poking at something in the dirt.  I walked over to see what it was.  About a foot long, thick, nice pointy copper colored head.  Yup, you guessed it.  Good thing it was about 38 degrees that morning!  The snake was too cold to move. My wife didn't know what kind of snake it was.


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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #11 on: October 01, 2005, 12:09:37 PM »
Yep, AR, I had a few close calls with those green meanies over there myself...they certainly ain't shy!

I never encountered this, but I was told that Charlie would capture these snakes, then hang them in the bushes to where their "business end" was about shoulder high.  They blended right in the the bush and hanging in that position...they could take a nip at some unsuspecting GI.

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #12 on: October 01, 2005, 12:30:21 PM »
My take on snakes.

Unseen or moving away - good snake.

Seen, heard or moving toward me - dead snake.

Derby (who really, really hates snakes) Younger

Offline tarheel mac

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #13 on: October 01, 2005, 01:29:14 PM »
Arapho, yep, I heard the exact same story...and also slightly modified...(snake in a booby trap pit, like a pungi stick) and I heard it sooften, I do believe that there was something to it...

But nope, I never saw a tiger,(or tracks)  although I heard from a lot of guys who knew someone who knew someone who had...that sort of thing...

Offline Col. Riddles

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #14 on: October 01, 2005, 01:38:17 PM »
Out here in west Texas the only venemous snakes we have are rattlers. I see em I shoot em period. No ifs ands or buts. I figure if they don't bite me they might bite somebody else or someones dog or horse. Over in east Texas they have cottonmouths & copperheads and in SE Texas you can ad coral snakes to that list. Never been bitten but I've come close. The only good snake to me is a dead snake. And yes if a rattler has shed his skin he's also lost his rattles & will strike w/o warning.

When I was kid dad & I were fishing & I saw a cottonmouth crawling into our boat. Dad had his back turned & I yelled snake. Dad grabbed an oar & flattened his head like a pancake. Cottonmouth was drt. 
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Offline El Peludo

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #15 on: October 01, 2005, 02:18:07 PM »
We only had "buzzworms", albeit, several varieties of them, to worry about in the deserts of SoCal and Nevada, and they usually used their "buzzer" if you got 'em in a spot they didn't like.  I have been struck, but never bitten, fortunately.

I was assembling some rigging on the end of a line truck boom, and while squatting down to adjust something, I felt something bump my hip.  I looked around, but didn't see anything, so went on about my business.  A while later, when I had shut down the engine on the truck, and everything was relatively quiet, I heard a hissing sound everytime I walked around to the side of the truck where I had been working on the rig.  At first, I thought it was an air leak, but on investigating, I found a small Sidewinder about a foot long rooted into the dirt, right where I had been working, with his little buzzer going a thousand beats a  minute.  On checking myself out, I found where it had apparently struck at me, and hit my hip at the thickest part of my jeans on the back pocket, and it was small enough, that the strike didn't penetrate the cloth.  That sure did get my awareness into high gear for a while, though.

Pesonally, I've relocated more of them than I have dispatched.  On a jobsite out in the boonies, we were the intruders, and we usually just moved any varmints that we came across to a safe distance, and finished our work; we were usually gone in a few hours, so no harm.  But in inhabited areas, the story is different, as the critters are usually fairly territorial, and conflicts between them and folks usually wind up being trouble.
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Offline RRio

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #16 on: October 01, 2005, 06:49:58 PM »
The only good snake to me is a dead snake.  

Amen, brother. Amen!
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Offline El Deguello

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #17 on: October 01, 2005, 11:23:25 PM »
I believe in nature, etc., however,  Snakes and spiders are dead meat for whatever feeds off their carcass.

Big SASS shoot in Texas last year.  Someone spotted rattler under an RV parked on RV row. Someone grabbed a shotgun and shot at snake.  Shot ricocheted off ground and hit side of RV parked next to it.  I believe the snake got away.  Would like to have heard conversation between RV owner and insurance agent.  True story, not a Texas tall tale.  ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Offline Triggerlock

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #18 on: October 02, 2005, 01:38:58 AM »
Howdy Col. Riddles.

I spent 1970-1974 stationed as a medic at Dyess AFB in Abilene Texas.  Not that far from Midland if I remember right.  But one thing I remember real good was my run in with an Eastern Cottonmouth Moccasin there :o. (Texas is blessed with both the Eastern and Western variety Cottonmouth).  I won't go into all the details of the story right now,  but that snake was positively indentified before it was killed.  There was a damned up creek in Abilene(Lytle Creek if I remember the name right), that was full of those things.

I also remember the poor Guardsman that was brought into our hospital one time who had been bitten by a Black Widow spider in the last place a guy would want to be bitten by one.  (Turns out that Black Widows like to hang out in outhouses,  there's worse things than just the smell in them places!)
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Offline Carolina Lead Foot

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Re: Rattlesnake Bite
« Reply #19 on: October 02, 2005, 09:09:12 AM »
I also do not like any pit viper around my house, sheds, etc.  The rat snakes, black snakes are fine for what they do and my friend are all king snakes (eat other snakes).  I am in a habit of carring a .357, 44, or 45 RBV with the first 3 rounds being rat shot and the last three being defensive rounds for 2 legged snakes.  I fine the shot to work on every snake I have shot at within 10 feet or so.  Killed a couple of copperheads, many a rattler (quite about that one may have been a timber and I understand they are protected) and more cottonmouths than I can remember with any of the above calibers.  I do know the difference between common watersnakes and cottonmouths so please do not tell me I have killed a lot of harmless snakes.  All snakes with venom I have little to no use for and will abide by the saying referenced above .... "only good snake is a dead one"...

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