Unwelcome shop visitor

[SHEBOP]

Great read! I used to kill every rattler that came on my property...now, I catch them & donate them for research.
They are housed, fed & milked for their venom.
Hopefully, this will help someone down the road.
Be careful though, they can have a nasty attitude...a tad testy at times...

 

[Will Leavitt]

In my view there's only 2 types of snakes, copperheaderwaterrattlers and dead ones. 2 snake stories for you:

One 3d Archery shoot we'd seen a couple of rattlers already, the traditional guys behind us were getting grumpy because we were slowing them down (2 of the guys in my group had roll-up sights.) We told them to go ahead but be careful of snakes, they told us "let the men handle critters." They shot from their stake, headed to the target to score and you could see them levitating and shooting, all you could hear was screaming and strings twanging. They came out pale and sweating with a 4' rattler full of arrows. We asked them when were the men going to show up. They didn't find it funny until we saw them at the next month's shoot.

One Saturday morning the kids were heading out the back door yelling and stuff, they came back in running and screaming. Large rattler on the back porch, I got a bat and beat it to death, shot it and then set it on fire (I don't like snakes.) Next day wife goes in the laundry room, runs screaming, apparently that dearly departed snake's mate was in our dryer. Made a catch stick, beat it to death, decapitated it and then burned it. I don't like snakes.

 

[childzplay]

Man Nathan, if I would have walked up on that, it would be time to go underwear shopping. It would be nice to get that fresh snakeskin though. I've only killed one snake and was surprised how tough it was. I thought I could slice the head off with one shot of the flat shovel, but no such luck.

 

[FTO_dude]

and people give australia flak for having some deadly creatures! we got nothing compared to that pic of that den.
I like to think i can react all manly around wild animals but im actually a bit timid.

 

[CShepherd]

they say smaller bay rattlers are more poisonis than the adults. they supposed to have more concentrated venom.--marekz

I have been told that it is because the babies inject everything they've got while the adults only inject a little bit.

Might be true. Don't want to find out.

Charlie

 

[Larry D. Davis]

What part of Jackson you in? I lived on New York Ranch road a couple years when I had my retail wood stores in Sacramento. Lots of hiking and gold panning, but never ran across a snake although got plenty of warnings.

Here in Georgia I've only seen one snake on my place and when I did, ran in the house and quickly Googled "poisonous snakes north Georgia" to see if a death sentence was upcoming for the critter. It was a good snake... I come from "non snake" country and not being raised with poisonous snake awareness keep every stick off my deck!!!

Had rattlesnake hor dourves passing thru Texas once and it did taste like chicken. Now everytime I sit down for chicken dinner I think, "This is going to taste like rattlesnake."

 

[M.Griffin]

What part of Jackson you in? I lived on New York Ranch road a couple years when I had my retail wood stores in Sacramento. Lots of hiking and gold panning, but never ran across a snake although got plenty of warnings.

Here in Georgia I've only seen one snake on my place and when I did, ran in the house and quickly Googled "poisonous snakes north Georgia" to see if a death sentence was upcoming for the critter. It was a good snake... I come from "non snake" country and not being raised with poisonous snake awareness keep every stick off my deck!!!

Had rattlesnake hor dourves passing thru Texas once and it did taste like chicken. Now everytime I sit down for chicken dinner I think, "This is going to taste like rattlesnake."

I used to live right in town near the Jr. High, but moved down to outskirts of Ione recently. Finally sold the Jackson house a few weeks ago. Made a ton of money.......right. I guess I need to update my profile to "rural Ione". I am just glad the snakes are asleep for a few months.

-Mike

 

[hellgap]

Nathan even up here in the cold north in saskatchewan we have diamond backs and prarie rattlers. One of the young guys I worked with said they would duck tape chaps on jump in the pit with a 100 rattlers and a 12 gauge and go crazy shooting . He told me they would shoot up to a thousand snakes a day for about a 2 week period every spring . Finally some snake lovers put a stop to it and made it a park . Go figure. Some of the other guys at work call him a B/S so he brought one to work and threw it at them lmao that was funny.

 

[Larry D. Davis]

I used to live right in town near the Jr. High, but moved down to outskirts of Ione recently. Finally sold the Jackson house a few weeks ago. Made a ton of money.......right. I guess I need to update my profile to "rural Ione". I am just glad the snakes are asleep for a few months.

-Mike

well....there ya go, Mike!! Any town (Ione) with an old gold rush nick name of "Bed Bug" gonna have snakes

My store was on Florin-Perkins road, off Jackson rd, but closed it 6-7 years ago. My first store was on the corner of Jackson rd and Bradshaw before they tore out that little old strip mall and put in the gas station. I always had a big stock of stabilized knife woods on hand. I got interested in knives and knife materials after some of the local makers came in...Scott Slobodian, Jim Sornberger, Lloyd Pendleton, Anders Hogstrom, who was staying with Scott and learning the craft. Lots of good makers up there. I miss Amador county and will stop in for a Moo Burger on my way north after Knife Expo in Pasadena mid March 2010. I'll have a few hundred pounds of wood with me if you want a private show.hahahahah

 

[silver_pilate]

The day someone comes and throws a rattlesnake at me is the day that person stops breathing the Lord's air.

--nathan

 

[silver_pilate]

Funny you mentioned the tree-huggers. Rattlesnake roundup in Abilene has rounded up literally tons and tons of snakes over the years. Some ecologists worried that it may be destroying the snake population so they set out to do a study. Turns out the rattlesnake roundup with as many snakes as they kill doesn't even put a dent in the population. Something like less than 1% of the population.

Talking to one guy, though, you'll tend to get a selective breeding effect as everyone gathers up the big snakes with lots of rattles and leave the smaller snakes, some without rattles through a genetic mutation. So you tend to see the population start moving towards smaller snakes and rattlesnakes with defective rattles over time.

--nathan

 

[Wade Jones]

I haven't seen one that big around here, just little prairie rattlers. My dog took a bite on the nose last summer. Swelled up like crazy. Poor dog.

He usually looks like this.