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Snakes!!!!

Sonora Rebel

Regular Member
Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Messages
3,956
Location
Gone
'Been seein' more of 'em than ever for some reason... rattlers. Killed a Mohave last Wedensday in my carport 'n tonite I was takin out the trash 'n spied this 'coon tail' goin' under one of the cans. Western Diamondback. Suffice to say... it's dark 'n nobody's home but me. 'Not gonna risk it way the hell out here. Anyway... thought maybe y'all might want'a think of buyin' some snakeshot (and load a pistol for that purpose beforehand). I didn't... 'n it vanished by the time I got back out there. If I'd gone out there 3 seconds later I'd never have seen it.
 

impulse

New member
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
131
Location
, ,
Ugh. Hope we don't see one tomorrow at the paintball field tomorrow. Customers freak out.
 

JesseL

Regular Member
Joined
May 22, 2006
Messages
207
Location
Prescott, Arizona, USA
Sometimes I wish I had more rattlers around my property - they're good eating.

Though having a 4 year old boy running around, it's probably for the best that they're staying away.
 

ccwinstructor

Centurion
Joined
Jul 11, 2008
Messages
919
Location
Yuma, Arizona, USA
It seems to vary a lot from year to year

'Been seein' more of 'em than ever for some reason... rattlers. Killed a Mohave last Wedensday in my carport 'n tonite I was takin out the trash 'n spied this 'coon tail' goin' under one of the cans. Western Diamondback. Suffice to say... it's dark 'n nobody's home but me. 'Not gonna risk it way the hell out here. Anyway... thought maybe y'all might want'a think of buyin' some snakeshot (and load a pistol for that purpose beforehand). I didn't... 'n it vanished by the time I got back out there. If I'd gone out there 3 seconds later I'd never have seen it.

One year I ended up killing or removing 5 rattlesnakes from right around my place in the desert. Most years... nothing. When I say removing, I gave a couple of them to the base preventive medicine unit. The released one 60 miles from my place, and another ended up in a formaldehyde jar. I released the one that they did, a couple of hundred yards away, and it was on my doorstep the next morning.
 
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MITCH

Regular Member
Joined
Aug 18, 2006
Messages
111
Location
, Arizona, USA
'Been seein' more of 'em than ever for some reason... rattlers. Killed a Mohave last Wedensday in my carport 'n tonite I was takin out the trash 'n spied this 'coon tail' goin' under one of the cans. Western Diamondback. Suffice to say... it's dark 'n nobody's home but me. 'Not gonna risk it way the hell out here. Anyway... thought maybe y'all might want'a think of buyin' some snakeshot (and load a pistol for that purpose beforehand). I didn't... 'n it vanished by the time I got back out there. If I'd gone out there 3 seconds later I'd never have seen it.

I always carried the round in the chamber a .38 or 9mm snake load while hiking in the Adrondack Mts. in NY. They both worked well on rattlers.
Mitch
 

CatnPhx

New member
Joined
Dec 12, 2010
Messages
4
Location
North Phoenix, AZ
I just killed a 3 1/2 foot rattler yesterday. That makes 8 of 9 years at my current home in North Phoenix that I've killed one ... all with my trusty shovel. My home is in a cul-de-sac that opens to Skunk Creek Wash.
 
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MR Redenck

Regular Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2010
Messages
596
Location
West Texas
I just killed a 3 1/2 foot rattler yesterday. That makes 8 of 9 years at my current home in North Phoenix that I've killed one ... all with my trusty shovel. My home is in a cul-de-sac that opens to Skunk Creek Wash.

BwAAA!
Snakes, yall dont know the meaning of Rattle Snake.
I use to work down around the Ozona area a lot, over the years I have killed one Rattler a little over 6' and seen another about the same size that had been ran over.
I HATE SNAKES!!! WHY ARE THE BIG ONES AFTER MEEEEEEE????
 

Notso

Campaign Veteran
Joined
May 13, 2007
Messages
432
Location
Laveen, Arizona, USA
Most may be bigger, but I give those Mohave's a lot of room when I see one cause they have a REALLY nasty venom. Don't mess around with them. I usually see 4 or 5 each year hiking up in South Mountain. They are hard to hear and harder to see.
 

Cavalryman

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jun 6, 2010
Messages
296
Location
Anchorage, Alaska
Most may be bigger, but I give those Mohave's a lot of room when I see one cause they have a REALLY nasty venom. Don't mess around with them. I usually see 4 or 5 each year hiking up in South Mountain. They are hard to hear and harder to see.

Mojave rattlers are the only North American pit viper that causes very many deaths. They have a very potent venom that attacks muscle and red blood cells and is neurotoxic to boot! Neurotoxins are what make cobras and other elapids so deadly and most rattlesnakes don't have them; neither do copperheads nor cottonmouth moccasins.
 

OldCurlyWolf

Regular Member
Joined
Sep 8, 2010
Messages
907
Location
Oklahoma
I just killed a 3 1/2 foot rattler yesterday. That makes 8 of 9 years at my current home in North Phoenix that I've killed one ... all with my trusty shovel. My home is in a cul-de-sac that opens to Skunk Creek Wash.

That shovel isn't big enough for the real rattlers. Western Diamondbacks commonly reach over 6 feet long and have been documented close to 9 feet long.

Get a bunch of roadrunners to hang around your house. No more rattlers in short order.
 

Bill Starks

State Researcher
Joined
Dec 27, 2007
Messages
4,304
Location
Nortonville, KY, USA
I just killed a 3 1/2 foot rattler yesterday. That makes 8 of 9 years at my current home in North Phoenix that I've killed one ... all with my trusty shovel. My home is in a cul-de-sac that opens to Skunk Creek Wash.

only 3 1/2 feet ...?
images
 

Sonora Rebel

Regular Member
Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Messages
3,956
Location
Gone
One year I ended up killing or removing 5 rattlesnakes from right around my place in the desert. Most years... nothing. When I say removing, I gave a couple of them to the base preventive medicine unit. The released one 60 miles from my place, and another ended up in a formaldehyde jar. I released the one that they did, a couple of hundred yards away, and it was on my doorstep the next morning.

Rattlers have a home range of about a 1/4 mile in diameter... it came 'home'.
 

gprod55

Regular Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2009
Messages
141
Location
Little Axe, Oklahoma
Striking Distance

Any pit viper has a striking range of 2/3rds its body length. A six foot snake can strike 4 feet from its coiled position.
How long is your shovel?
 

MKEgal

Regular Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2010
Messages
4,383
Location
in front of my computer, WI
Cavalryman said:
Mojave rattlers are the only North American pit viper that causes very many deaths.
So how do these look different from any other snake w/ a loud tail?
Not that I'm likely to a) be around them, or b) stay in one place long enough to take a close look if I do find that I'm near one... :eek:

gprod55 said:
Any pit viper has a striking range of 2/3rds its body length. A six foot snake can strike 4 feet from its coiled position. How long is your shovel?
I saw my grandpa kill a rattler w/ a shovel once.
He managed to keep it stretched out so it couldn't strike.
Not sure I'd want to try it myself. (Actually, I'm pretty sure I would not want to try it.)
 

ccwinstructor

Centurion
Joined
Jul 11, 2008
Messages
919
Location
Yuma, Arizona, USA
Yes it did.

Rattlers have a home range of about a 1/4 mile in diameter... it came 'home'.

Unfortunately, it had made its home right next to my front door. I don't like to kill snakes, but I am not willing to have a living land mine live where it is easily stepped on. They are so well camoflaged that it is easy to miss them, and they don't always rattle. I almost stepped on one just outside the front door of our main building.

Once, we called post snake removal, they came and took the little sidewinder a couple of hundred yards out in the desert and dropped it on a sandy spot dotted with gravel. I fit in that environment so well that I could just barely make it out even though I had seen it dropped.
 

j4l

Regular Member
Joined
Jan 6, 2011
Messages
1,835
Location
fl
Memories lol. Used to see a lot of Rattlers out there.
Now, back in Fla. in a marshy/swampy area, I get tons of all kinds in addition to Diamondbacks and pigmies, I get Copperheads as well.
Lot of non-poisonous (green, garden, rat snakes etc) too, but it's gotten to where I dont even take any chances trying to distinguish em. I just blast em and clear em out.

In the past yr, have killed 4 DBs, 2 Coppers and a bunch of others.
.410 shotshells- #4/#6 -perfect doses for em. I keep an old single-shot H&R close by when outside just for this.
Good use for a Judge, actually-much handier to carry around outside on the lands. Def. intend to get one sometime for this purpose.
 

Wyocowboy

Regular Member
Joined
Jan 11, 2009
Messages
56
Location
Newcastle, Wyoming, USA
Snakes

Thanks for the warning!! I hate snakes! Almost been bit a few times. I kill all of them that I can. I am SO glad I live where they only come out about 4 mos out of the yr. I want to visit Arizona, but all those snakes?! Guess I'll have to be very careful, and of course I'll go armed.
 
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