When I was in grade school a guy doing a presentation brought in a Eastern Diamondback's head- in a big mason jar of alcohol- that snakes head about filled the jar- he had a photo of a local guy holding a dead diamondback at arms length, by the neck- the guy was about 5'10" and there was two foot of snake on the ground. There was a reason the hills behind our place was called "Rattlesnake Mountain", though growing up there, I never once saw a rattlesnake in the wild. Did see a copperhead once, my buddy stepped on it, pinning it into a hollow of the rock he was walking on. The snake could not move, and my friend could not move without freeing it- he was about petrified, especially as he came from a hill family with a lot of backwoods lore about the evils of snakes. So I said, "Eddie, Eddie, don't move! I'll be right back!" , ran off and got a rock and we managed to coordinate the "jump and smash" maneuver . that one was pretty small, maybe 18" or two foot long, something like that. I was half afraid he was going to jump too far, as we were on the top of a washed out old dam with a vertical drop of 50' - the 1938 hurricane washed it out along with half the rest of New England.
