Posted on 03/11/2013 4:23:26 PM PDT by JoeProBono
Participants in the annual, three-day Sweetwater Rattlesnake RoundUp in Texas caught more than a ton of snakes, organizers said.
More than 30,000 people attended the event, they said, with visitors including people from as far away as China, Israel, Germany, England and Australia..
The roundup paid $13-per-pound for captured rattlers, featured about 2,160 pounds of rattlesnakes being weighed, the most since the 2,168-pound total in 2010, the Abilene (Texas) Reporter-News reported Monday.
"The importance of this is to control the snake population and to inform the public," Texas Game Warden George Pasley said. "You see all these snakes here and you think there can't be many left in the wild, but there's plenty. We see rattlesnakes all the time. I have seen no shortage of rattlesnakes."
Kathleen and Darrell McIntyre of Childress won a $400 prize for capturing the longest snake. It measured 78 inches.
I killed one once that was over 6 feet. I forget the exact length but it was between 6’-0” and 6”-6”. Must have been good habitat because it had surprisingly few rattles.
A bazillion years ago at boy scout camp I saw a frozen eastern diamondback that measured 6’5”. It’s head was as big as my teenage fist.
The camp ranger kept it in the freezer to pull out on skinning night each week to show off.
I make my own snake loads for .38, .357mag, 44spl, 44mag, and .45Colt.
I mostly use air rifle pellets. Goes through the brush better in this area of SE Texas than the round shot.
Pellets will go through 1/2” plywood at 7’ like it’s not even there.
Rattlers are fairly passive ... don’t mess with them and they don’t mess with you (it’s when you don’t see them that things get dicey)
Now Water Moccasins and Copperheads ... them things are vicious evil chase your ass MEAN and then their is the little Coral Snake that is soooo pretty and it has about the nastiest Venom ever.
I try my best to leave them all alone but Rattlers are not the worst.
TT
So that’s why White House tours were shut down.
I shot this one right through the head with a Tokarev .30 caliber bullet.
The picture is misleading in a couple of ways. I stuck the tyne of the rake through the hole in it’s head and when I held it up the first 3 feet or so stretched out making it appear longer and thinner. The part which didn’t have to support so much weight stayed about the same size it originally was.
The snake was actually around 6’10” but would have appeared well over 7 feet with it stretched out like that. The angle by which the head is seen and the fact that it is stretchd makes the head look smaller than it is.
I am only holding him slightly in front but mostly to the side so the picture does not give him an artificiality large look. Much of him is still on the ground.
I forgot to paste the picture. Here it and me is.
Several years back, some idiot thought it was a good idea to reintroduce some kind of timber rattler in the Big Thicket. Endangered species. Fed felony to kill one. Big whoop.
Somehow they missed the memo of “you leave them alone and they will leave you alone”.
Damn things are born with an attitude.
You get within 6’ and they will find you.
They are right up there with a sow moccasin.
I had an oil lease in Batson. I’d go out in the morning and the road would be full of snakes soaking up the heat from the road.
Running over them with my truck sounded like a kid with bubble wrap on Christmas morning.
>
Only good snake is a dead snake (Not PETA friendly) Speaking of PETA, don’t you think a Hollywood supporter of PETA should pose with a rattlesnake???
The snakes are milked for their venom. How the stuff is made, I haven’t a clue. From time to time, I entertain the notion to go to the event. Then I regain my senses and decide to do something safer, like fly a kite in a thunderstorm.
If a firearm not handy, bolt cutters are adequate snake killers, too (experience).
I thought I remembered “milking rattlesnakes for venom” and now I even remember seeing pictures of it being done. I would take up skydiving before I would go to this event. I have seen rattlesnakes in south Texas and even killed one of them but to actually go someplace and hunt for them......... no thanks.
/johnny
And Cool Hand Luke where the Man With No Eyes shoots the head off a snake.
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