zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[JohnP]

Last Sunday, sitting on the Lazy Boy chips, pretzels, salsa and a cold ice tea enjoying the games.  Wife comes in the house and tells me there is a rattlesnake on the patio.  I say "so, what else is new?"  she says "if you ever want to watch another football game you better get your butt out there and kill it!  I raise my head off the back of the chair while the rest of me stays firmly planted in the chair, eyes darting back and forth between the game and the patio, no snake that I could see I tell her.  She then proceeds to tell me that if she has to go and get the gun the snake may not be the only thing that dies today.  One thing that I have learned in fifty years of marriage to this lady - she doesn't lie....


He had moved off the patio and onto the driveway.



Three feet, six inches.  Will make a nice hat band.

[HaMeR]

Purdy cool markings on that one Mr John. 

[weedwalker]

John, that one is colored a lot like our eastern timber rattlers with the yellowish tint with black diamonds and the black towards the end of the tail. I've only ever seen 4 of them here in Ky. More copperheads here than rattlers.

[Hawks Feather]

Neat pictures, but I have a question.  Not having rattlesnakes around here and having never hunted them, how do you "dispatch" one?  Obviously a shovel between the head and body would work, but so would a pellet gun.  Then there is the trick that I have heard where you grab the tail and play "crack the whip" which breaks it neck.  But, how do you do it?

Jerry

[Carolina Coyote]

Hawk,      you sound like a city slicker.     

[FinsnFur]

I'm glad it wasnt my patio

[pitw]

Where the [L] is the "GOOD" picture .

[weedwalker]

Not having rattlesnakes around here

They are closer than you think Jerry. My little brothers freind got arressted for catching and selling messasauga rattlesnakes in Ft.Wayne. My Mom worked at Verizon in Ft.Wayne and the snakes would come out of the woods in back and onto the warm blacktop parking lot at night. Sometimes there would be up to 15 of them in the parking lot.
Watch where you step.

[HaMeR]

the snakes would come out of the woods in back and onto the warm blacktop parking lot

Live speed bumps!!! 

[alscalls]

Nice pics John!

Now when do we see this hat band?   

[possumal]

John P, I hope you blew him to hell and back with a shotgun.  Don't like those buzztails.  Like Weedwalkers says, we have a lot more copperheads in Ky. but there are some big timber rattlers too. 

[Hawks Feather]

Not having rattlesnakes around here

They are closer than you think Jerry. My little brothers freind got arressted for catching and selling messasauga rattlesnakes in Ft.Wayne. My Mom worked at Verizon in Ft.Wayne and the snakes would come out of the woods in back and onto the warm blacktop parking lot at night. Sometimes there would be up to 15 of them in the parking lot.
Watch where you step.

Dang.  If they have them 45 miles west, we should have them around here too.  I may have to look a little more when I hear an unfamiliar sound. 

Jerry

[WhiteHare]

If you ever hear a muffled -  "PSSSST Jerry Over hear."   followed by the sound of a babies rattle.  I think I'd go the other direction.

[JohnP]

Jerry - I tried that old Lash LaRue trick ONCE, when I was young and dumb.  Ended up with the rattles between my thumb and forefinger and a four foot rattlesnake coiled around my ankles.  Lucky for me he was as frightened as I was and I didn't get a bitten.  I now dispatch them by holding their head down with my foot and using my Buck 110.  However since it was Sunday and the game was on this guy got a quick kill by a .117 pellet at 900fps at a distance of about twelve inches. 

Al - I don't think you are going to see the hat band, my son did the skinning and took it with him back up to the Phoenix area. 

Ed - When I'm back east of the big river I am more concerned about the Copperheads than I am about our rattlesnakes.  At least ours give ya a warning, most of the time.  Plus your Cottonmouths' just scare me to death.