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A pic of a lil' critter I found slitherin' 'round at my folks' place over the weekend.
Brad
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I hope the lil'l critter is now being cured to make a hat band.
I really dislike snakes, they usually found themselves on the wrong end of the shotgun when I lived in Florida.
Wayne
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I like snakes.........taste like chicken!
Did ya eat him?
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Did you smack it upside the head with a frying pan?
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Did ya pull a Steve Irwin and pick him up while chanting "DANGER DANGER DANGER!"
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That reminds me, I wonder how my exwife is doing...
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rattlesnake or copperhead?
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That's a rattler. You can see the rattles in the lower center of the image.
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ok now I see them, thanks. Just don't get to rattlesnakes here in Iowa very often, I have seen three in my life. Two on the side of the road in the AM and one while out walking a crick bottom in a limestone canyon.
-C
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It's beautiful.
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I have no problem with venomous serpents as long as they keep their distance form my property. Cross the line, however, and I got a shovel waiting to whack the critter into its next state of being.
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That's my rule as well, although we don't have rattlers to deal with East of the Blue Ridge. All the black snakes and their kin are welcome on my property; copperheads are not and will be dealt with swiftly and without mercy.
TC
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Copperheads are generally more brown or light brown in color. They are normally smaller also at least the ones I always saw.
My mother was bit on the foot by a coperhead when I was a kid. She didn't see it and stepped on its tail. Since then, snakes were not allowed near the house on pain of death.
Where I grew up, I never once saw a live rattler. We saw many copperheads, mocassins, bullsnakes, garter snakes, chicken snakes and others, but never a liver rattler. I did see rattlers that others had killed, I just never came across one. Since we didn't run around the woods after dark much, I think that is the main reason.
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I wish I had a few snakes around here, might cut down on the mouse problem....I actually suggested to the wife that we get a cat today, give it back to the humane society when we move...she called me heartless....
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A few years ago, I was camping up on Reddish Knob near Harrisonburg, Va. The first morning, I was "returning the coffee rental" when I looked to my right and saw a 4' rattler sunning himself about 3' away. I finished my business and popped him with a 38 snakeshot, destoying his head. After he stopped squirming, I skinned him out and brought the skin home to dry and mount. It's tacked to an oak board in my office at home.
I had to kill it because this was his 2nd sighting of the trip and we had too many people in that camp to risk a bite. At best speed (some of it over jeep trails), it would take over an hour to get to the nearest hospital.
Chris
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FIRE MISSION! SHELL HE! SNAKE IN THE OPEN! FIRE FOR EFFECT!
Man, snakes give me the heebee-jeebies.
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Wuz on the backhoe, yesterday, going out to clear a rockfall from one of my hunting-route jeep trails. Saw a medium-sized rattler.
You have any idea what back-dragging a loader bucket across a rattler does to that pore lil critter?
, Art
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I see rattlers periodically, especially when goign to the public range which is out in the desert.
Never had a problem with them. We leave each other alone.
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Snakes on a Range?
Call Hollywood, I smell sequel!
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Since I forgot to say it earlier - "nice pic." I usually shoot pit vipers with a firearm, but you did a good job with a camera.
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great photo.
Snakes eat rat,mice and other disease carriers.
leave em alone.
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Snake out in the wild? Sure, leave it alone.
Snake in your campsite or yard? We aren't exactly short on snakes. Far better safe than sorry, especially with kids and pets around.
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That's a great picture, Brad. How big was he, do you guess? Two feet, maybe? Although it's hard to judge scale (heh) when you're just looking at the snake and a few cedar branches.
James
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About two and a half feet. Six rattles and a button.
I was about four feet away when I snapped the pic. I kept prodding him trying to get his head up, but he kept hunkering down lower.
Brad
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I kept prodding him trying to get his head up, but he kept hunkering down lower.
You're a braver man than me.
Chris
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You're a braver man than me.
Wait til I tell you what I was prodding him with.
Brad
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You're a braver man than me.
Wait til I tell you what I was prodding him
with.
Brad
Well?
By the way, regarding that picture in your first post: *right click, save as*
I hope you don't mind, it's a pretty nice picture.
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You're a braver man than me.
Wait til I tell you what I was prodding him
with.
Brad
Well?
A man's stick is his own business.
By the way, regarding that picture in your first post: *right click, save as*
I hope you don't mind, it's a pretty nice picture.
Not at all. Glad somebody appreciated it!
Brad
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Wait til I tell you what I was prodding him
with.
Well?
A man's stick is his own business.
If you were poking the snake from 4' away with *that*, then you are definately more man than me.
Chris
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Nah, an itty two and half rattler can only strike out about a foot or so. The other three feet were insurance. Plus, I had Dad standing by with a shovel in case the critter decided to go on the move.
Brad
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About two and a half feet. Six rattles and a button.
I was about four feet away when I snapped the pic. I kept prodding him trying to get his head up, but he kept hunkering down lower.
Brad
"Now don't troy this at home folks, Oi'm a professional...Oi'm just going to give him a little nudge to woik him up and we'll see what koind of mood he's in, hay?
For the record I really, really enjoyed Steve Irwin's productions. I'm making light of the idea of a non-pro copying his antics in real-life, not his tragic death.
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Back in the old days, when I had to work for a living, I had a young man work with me for a summer while he was going to college. He told me about some of the odd jobs he's taken to get through school. One job he'd taken was with a Boy Scout camp somewhere in Southern California. His task was simply to hunt and kill rattlesnakes and he was paid by the number of buttons on the rattles.
Evidently, hunting was pretty good, since he paid for a year of college with his earnings, but here's where the odd part comes in. It seems that no one at the camp had ever been actually bitten by a snake, only frightened, yet the following year several kids were bitten by rabbits and had to go through a series of rabies shots as a precaution.
I don't live around them anymore but when I did, I generally left them alone unless they were encroaching on my space.
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Do you want to be the guy in charge when that one Cub Scout gets bit?
Preemption is the better part of valor in those situations. There's plenty of opportunity to show the kids snakes and proper behavior out in the woods on treks, no need to do it behind the chow hall.
I'm trying to think of a collection of young boys that wouldn't solve the rabbit problem themselves in a day or so, if only by the usual small boy tactic of "running around like idiots at full volume" much less with a collective complement of knives and "whacking sticks" that would shame the entire Zulu nation.
Must be well-disciplined Scouts.
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That's better then the YMCA camp in my town. A few years ago they found a den of Copperheads under one of the kids cabins. What did they do? Call an exterminator? No, they quarantined the cabin and made the camp build a new one for the kids. Only in New Jersey do we let a den of poisonous snakes continue to thrive because their lives are much more important then the lives of a bunch of 8-12 year olds. Needless to say attendance at the camp has dwindled over the last couple of years. Who would knowingly let their kid go to a camp that has that kind of zoological attraction smack dab in the middle of it? I hate NJ, I really do.
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Back in the old days, when I had to work for a living, I had a young man work with me for a summer while he was going to college. He told me about some of the odd jobs he's taken to get through school. One job he'd taken was with a Boy Scout camp somewhere in Southern California. His task was simply to hunt and kill rattlesnakes and he was paid by the number of buttons on the rattles.
Evidently, hunting was pretty good, since he paid for a year of college with his earnings, but here's where the odd part comes in. It seems that no one at the camp had ever been actually bitten by a snake, only frightened, yet the following year several kids were bitten by rabbits and had to go through a series of rabies shots as a precaution.
I don't live around them anymore but when I did, I generally left them alone unless they were encroaching on my space.
Hmmmm ...
Harvey the attack rabbit got loose again, eh?