Not a close call got bit by a rattlesnake in 2005 spent eight days in the hospital and a full year recovering. I was lifting a pipe and it was in one of the pipes and it got me.

… direct hit

…. What was the hardest part of the recovery?

… I’m assuming western diamondback ?

When I was a kid, we were on a church father and sons outing down at Lake Powell. We had a softball game going on a sandy flat. Several times guys that made it to "third base" said they heard something buzzing. Nobody figured it out until about the forth inning the rattler, in the hole under the little bush we were using as third base, had enough and came shooting out of there. A shovel took care of that one and we continued the game. That night we started throwing matches into bends of a wash that had blown full of tumbleweeds. Flames 10-15 feet high on some of those pockets. But on one of the smaller blazes another rattler squirted out to get away form the heat. We all lost interest in wandering around in the dark without flashlights at that point.

No one got bit but it sure was funny.

Guy that organized the KS roundup was from Osborn KS. He took folks with him in a bus to watch him catch snakes. Kept trying to get me and my buddy to tell him the places we were catching them.

We showed up in town with about a dozen one afternoon in our snake box. They had a show going on. Bleachers with a "pit of death" the attraction. Had about a hundred snakes in it mostly diamondbacks caught in TX and OK.. Made a coral of sorts from plywood. Was a couple guys in it playing with the snakes.

Guy from Osborn pointed at a scale and said weigh them there to get paid. Had a young guy there supposed to weigh them. I dont think anyone explained how that was to be done. We carried the box over and said we wanted them weighed. Explained weigh the box full, then empty, subtract the difference. He said no dump the snakes on the scale. Sounded fun so we did. Kid screamed and ran when they of course wanted to go somewhere else. People in the bleachers were screaming and jumping off of them. Was quite a fun tine. Osborn came over mad. We got the snakes all gathered back up. he went ahead and bought them.

Guy was crooked as the contents of that snake box at the end of the day. They had a biggest snake contest. We had it won by a good margin with a snake my son found. He was only about 12 at the time so even though he found it we did not let him catch it. When Osborn saw it instead of paying us our prize money they brought out a snake that been caught and sold in OK. That kid at the scale told us where they got it.

There is no round up there now. Tree huggers were having fits about it and guy from Osborn died. From what I have seen all those round ups are crooked like that.

We would pump water out of the Yellowstone river and irrigate the hay fields!
So i had too walk the fields and make sure every part was getting wet ,it
also rounded up the snakes to the high ground. I broke a few shovels on rattlesnakes.
The ranchers dog got bit in the face,swelled up for a couple days.
Fun days,, especially when stacking hay in the fields,and rattlesnakes parts hanging out of
the bails! we wore leather gloves.

Missouri has cottonmouths, copperheads, and rattlesnakes. I've shaken hands a time or two with all of them but never been bit. Worst snake bite yet was a lawyer that hit me with a $250 bill for fixing a speeding ticket.

ol' dad

1976 I had a summer job with Utah Division of Wildlife Resources at Hardware Ranch. They put up hay in the summer and feed it to elk in the winter from horse drawn sleighs, with rides free to the public. That summer we kept the fields irrigated then hauled the hay, putting it up in a huge barn. One of the fields was at the base of a rocky hill called Rattlesnake.You could expect seeing a rattler at any time in that field. But when we cut the hay and raked it into windrows it concentrated all the field mice under those rows of hay. The snakes took advantage of the good hunting. When the hay was bailed we loaded the bales by hand on a big flatbed to take them to the barn. You learned real quick to look carefully at each bale and roll it toward you to make sure there wasn't a rattler under the bail, or caught alive in the bail, before you picked it up. The few snakes that got bailed alive were angry little nightmare makers. Luckily none of us got bit. I collected a bunch of rattles that summer.

Bit by a prairie rattler when I was a kid in the right little finger when I reached to pick up my lunch I had set on the ground. Burned like heck and turned black and swollen went to the ER and they monitored it Dr thought it was a dry bite for the most part. lost some skin but other than that got away lucky, hate the dang things and we got plenty of them. Lost a horse one year got bit in the face, amazing what the dang things can do.

This thing tried to drag me off and swallow me whole, but I put up a pretty good fight.

Watch it don't wrap around your finger,You'll be a goner!!!!!!!!!!!

Back when I was really into taxidermy, I bought lots of Eastern diamondback snakes from Georga, Florida and got timbers and copperheads from a friend in Kentucky. I tanned them, made belts, mounted them, and sold them. I had a big box of snakes from Florida shipped frozen by UPS and when the driver delivered them, I said I hope they are not dead and cut the box open. It was full of 5'+ Eastern Diamondbacks. He freaked out and ran to his truck thinking he was driving around with a big box of rattlesnakes. It was a good laugh. You had to be very careful skinning out the heads with all the venom that you didn't stab yourself or cut yourself because it would be just like a bite.
The friend from Kentucky had lots of videos and I was amazed at how mad a timber could get. I saw how they could move their fangs and would try and stab his hand by moving the lower jaw or sticking the fang through the lower jaw to get his hand or finger. He took videos of dens in the mountains and the copperheads would come out snapping their mouths.

Never an experience with a poisonous snake but as a youth I was running up some steps from a lake and in the woods. I was barefooted and a large pine snake around 4 foot or better was coiled on a step and I stepped on the snake going up and he coiled around my lower leg and I got him shook off and screaming etc. Heart rate went up a bit.

Bryce

only chicken snakes for me Savell. good thing I experienced it young in life gathering eggs. tore my garage to hec and back three summers back when one came in and was on top of a stack of ice chests. fell across both arms and latched onto to my right hand. wouldve have been a dandy of a video. Once I got his head in my right hand, sounded like egg shells being crushed. still cut the dog outta of my arm when I went to spinning and got hung up in a folding chair. that chair looked like a pretzel that Carl Childers put together. Matter of fact, that may have been as intense as that big melon headed dog I could only get my catch pole around his nose that day. That was intense, pretty sure you still remember that one. Poor ole Sammy didnt know what to think.

Yep … ol cujo

that was one bad dog til I cinched down that noose on his nose and mouth. still shouldve let you do what needed to be done.

…. Still haven’t heard from Mr Dobbins or my hero Jtrap

Hey, Savell. Not too impressive or poisonous, but pretty funny... I use to rent an old house up on the St. Croix river. One day, I was hearing a sort of strange sound from the kitchen, so I went in there to try to figure it out. I was looking up the exhaust hood above the old electric range to see if some critter got in there when I heard the sound coming from below my face. I looked down and saw a snake pattern moving under each of the four stove burners! At one point, I had put aluminum foil under the range top and his slithering along the foil was the sound I heard. I could not see his head, so I carefully pulled out each electric burner so I had four holes with snake view. Then I waited as he moved until it appeared that one access hole was closer to his tail end, and I grabbed him to pull him out. He grabbed tight onto something under the range top and the tug of ware began! Too funny. I pulled and pulled and he didn't give! After a bit, whatever he grabbed onto started to cut into him and he weakened and let go - suddenly flying past my face and onto the floor. I stepped on him behind his head and then picked him up to check him out. He was cut and pretty limp. Well, I knew I had a pretty good reptile ID book so I hung onto him with my left hand and paged through the book with my right hand. He started regaining strength and wrapped himself all around my left arm waiting for me to get done studying. He was a good sized pine snake with a great attitude. He put on a pretty good show! I took him outside and threw him into the woods. (He was probably back in my place by the next day!)

…. lol good story Patrice …. My wife would have ran away screaming lol

The big timber rattler I beheaded in Oregon ended up laid out across the dash of the bullbuck’s pickup, I’ve never seen a man jump and roll out of a truck so fast before lol

…. Had the biggest copperhead I’ve ever seen end up stuck in my blue jeans