Look What I Killed Yesterday !

[USNative]

Hey Guys, I was out irrigating the hay field yesterday morning when I walked up on this Prairie Rattler. Good thing I was watching because he was coiled up but did not rattle at all. A few more steps and not watching the little bugger would have bit me for sure. This is the first one of the season for me. It has been a dry year and the irrigating around here is attracting them to the water areas. Looks like I will need to be extra careful this year.

This guy was about 28" long and about 2" around. He had 5 buttons on him. Don't know why he never rattled but he was coiled up so he definitley knew I was coming up on him. There was a guy last year that had the same thing happen to him but unfortunatley he was not as lucky as I was. He walked up to open a gate and there were two of em there and they both bit him. He ended up in the hospital for a while but he made it.

[Zhurh]

I miss not having snakes here in Alaska. We had relatives in North Dakota many years back and they got huge rattle snakes, like almost as big as the ones in East Texas, well not that big; but I was still impressed. I wonder how the take the cold weather in Montana?

[Zane71464]

Scary stuff there, for me anyways! Not afraid of them but afraid of what they can do.
Had a close call with a copperhead as a young'en, and have been a bit "shy" of both
the Rattle Sanke and Copperhead.
I was watching a program on tv, not sure what channel it was, but they were talking
about how the Rattle snake wont always warn ya. They guy on the program walked right
up to it and would have stepped on it if he'd not seen it, no warning at all.

[wv hillbilly]

i dont like spiders or snakes

[76Highboy]

Good eye Native.

[Gabob]

I got a small timber rattler last Tuesday. I have only had one rattler that rattled at me and I have dealt with over a hundred over the years. I average about five or six a year

[geds]

Nice job keepin the keen eye out! Glad you got him before he got you!

[Brass Tacks]

Originally Posted by wv hillbilly

i dont like spiders or snakes

Jim Stafford wrote a song about that

[BETH]

what does the amount of buttons mean?

[jedwil]

I haven't noticed an increase in snakes but the scorpion population has exploded for some reason......

[raven818]

What are you going to do with the skin? Belt...hat band...watch band..??

[Slabsides]

Just got this one a few minutes ago.

[millwright]

Originally Posted by BETH

what does the amount of buttons mean?

Not much, Beth ! A rattlesnake gets a "new button" every time it sheds, but they also break them off so all the number tells you is how many times its shed its skin recently. FWIW, a snake's skin doesn't "grow" as the snake grows inside it so it periodically "sheds" its confining garment like a lady skinning out of a corset or girdle. Depending upon the food supply and their growth, a snake may shed several times in a season. >MW

[USNative]

Everyone around our area are saying it's going to be a bad year for snakes. almost everyone in our area including us are irrigating either hay fields or some kind of crop. It brings the snakes in when they want water and it's dry.

I lived in another town in Montana for 11 years and never ran into one snake. I killed one last year and now this year in this area. I will just have to keep my awareness at a pretty high level it looks like. Never saw any on our place last season although I had been told by a neighbor when we first moved here that they were around. Well, now I know they are as I got this kill to prove it.

Raven was asking what I was going to do with the skin, well I actually cut the buttons off to keep but chucked the snake after. Never even thought about skinning him. Maybe someday I will skin one and make something with it. LOL !!!

Oh and I did get my dog Cody his rattlesnake vaccination and he got the follow up shot today. He was with me when I ran into this snake but he is very obedient and stayed away when I told him to.

Hey Slabsides, is that a water moccasin ? Looks like it to me.

[Grizz]

Nice kill! I just got me one too a couple weeks ago!

[BlackEagle]

Isn't rattlesnake a delicacy for some people? I hear it tastes like chicken. I almost got to have some a while back, but the boy who was supposed to be watching it decided he didn't want any so threw it into the fire.

[garydude]

Nice job Native. If I'm away from homes and people and the snake has the decency to rattle at me I usually give him a pass. But like you, when they don't they get dispatched. How did you take this one?

[MSGT-R]

I'm going to have to educate the neighboor kids about Rattlers again, we live in an urban area right next to a hilly ridge (open area). So far, no kid has been bitten yet.

I had one in my back yard about 10 years ago that was about 5' long and as big around as my arm! I never saw him again (and never wanted to), but my neighbor saw several signs that he was around... they can get that big here.

[jim summers]

Don't you just hate snakes, i do which do you think would win in a fight a rattlesnake or a cottonmouth.

[JLA]

Delicious. Did yall eat em? Snake is delicious dredged in cornmeal and fried like fish. Especially rattlesnake.

[Haligan]

He didn't rattle, or warn you ! ? ! ? What, do you want him to do fly a flag ?

[rustyfugger]

Nice Rattle Snake. I let them pass, but will kill a Water Moccinson in a flash. They will chase you in some cases. We have plenty of both in Florida.

[langenc]

Texans say "only good snake is a dead one" except for the big black one. They are supposed to eat rattlers??

[JasonS]

i use a snake hook and put them in a bucket, then drive them a couple miles away from the house I found them at and let them go in an area with lots of holes and water near by.

[USNative]

Originally Posted by garydude

Nice job Native. If I'm away from homes and people and the snake has the decency to rattle at me I usually give him a pass. But like you, when they don't they get dispatched. How did you take this one?

Well, to be honest , I never brought my gun with me I have a little Remington Single Shot Breach Action .410 shotgun (Taurus Judge or S&W Governor on my wish list) and I usually always have it with me but forgot to take it when I went to check my irrigation ditch. Hell I never even took the shovel with me, dang me! ( I won't be leaving em' again I tell ya). I was about 15 yards away from the ditch in the hay field when I walked up on him. I marked the spot where he was with a stick and then went to the ditch and grabbed me two big rocks. When I got back he was still there coiled up but still didn't rattle, Amazing!

I hit him with the first stone where you see the meat hanging out in the pic. Wow, he finally starts rattling and then striking out towards me but I am out of range. I take the second stone and nail him on the head with it and then repeat just to make sure !

These prairie rattlers aren't as poisonous as a lot of the others (some can still kill ya though) but they are aggressive buggers and get agitated pretty easy. That's why I don't like it when they don't play nice and give a warning.The lady at the veterinarian's office told me the same thing had just recently happened to someone she knew, only he actually had stepped right on the snake cuz he never saw it he jumped back and was fortunate that he just missed getting bit.