Shovels and Rakes and.....

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Ray
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Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Ray »

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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by GunnyMack »

Are we talking snakes or policitions?
Unless they have fangs and venom they get a pass- provided they are cold blooded & scaly...no that still describes policitions.
Ok cold blooded, no limbs, fangs or venom then free pass.
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by claybob86 »

I only kill the venomous types. Shotguns, hoes, shovels and bricks, whatever's handy. All non-venomous snakes are welcome here!
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Marvin S »

Enjoyable to read post. Mom always used a hoe in the Hen house, I preferred my single shot.410 for outside duty.
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Griff »

Ray wrote: Sat Oct 27, 2018 3:26 amImplements of destruction.....
Finally the grange master gavelled the meeting to a close, whispering to the historian to add snake killing to the conventional conversational prohibitions of religion and politics and sports.
Your thoughts/opinions ?
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Blaine »

My Grandparents were death on ALL snakes. Too bad. Grandpa claimed that if you aimed a .22 short at a copperhead's head that he was so fast that he would strike at it and get himself kilt....I suspect he was always smiling a bit when he said that. :wink:
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by AJMD429 »

I don't kill any snakes. If they are venomous (we have copperheads and timber rattlers) that are near the house (rare since we have dogs and goats) I sometimes catch them and turn them loose in an area where they won't be around people, like some timber piles or old barn foundations on our property. Why kill something that isn't likely to hurt you...?
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by HawkCreek »

I only kill the rattlers around the house and yard. A shovel is my usual tool of choice but I'm not against using a bullet or CCI shotshells either. With kids, dogs and livestock around why take the chance one of them will get bit?
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by GunnyMack »

I used to have snakes, one day I pulled up to the drive up window at the bank, my Burmese Python had his head on my left shoulder. The teller was trying not to stare but finally curiosity got the better of her and she asked if it was real or not.
I said it was fake. Not 2 seconds later he flicked his tongue out and started for the window.
I swear that womans feet never touched the ground as she vaulted over the counter running for the far side of the bank. Finally I see the branch manager ease her head around the side of the window. Then she realized I wasnt trying to rob the place and asked me what happened. I had to take the snake inside so everyone cod see it.
I still laugh about that everytime i pull up to a bank!
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by piller »

I try to let snakes go about their lives. If I am sure it is venomous, I will kill it. I live in the city and there are little children around. Out in the woods or fields the snakes get a chance to get away or at least stay back and non threatening. They do eat mice after all.
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Larkbill »

Venomous in the yard gots to go. Whatever is at hand for weapons, range doesn't particularly worry me.

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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Sixgun »

Like others have said, it depends on the type of snake and where it decides to make his home. Same goes for spiders...outside..fine...inside..dead. We don't have venomous snakes around here except copperheads and I've never seen but see garter snakes all the time and I'm fine with that.

Water snakes are seen pretty much regularly but they stay away from the house, preferring to hang out in the creek and pond out back. They are aggressive though and will "snake" their way right at you.

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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Merle »

BlaineG wrote: Sat Oct 27, 2018 11:12 am My Grandparents were death on ALL snakes. Too bad. Grandpa claimed that if you aimed a .22 short at a copperhead's head that he was so fast that he would strike at it and get himself kilt....I suspect he was always smiling a bit when he said that. :wink:

there's a nugget of truth there. I recall one of the outdoor shows setting up a high speed camera and filming the firing of various rounds in the vicinity of a rattler. seems the snake could see the bullet - and attempted to strike at it - but the faster rounds such as 357 mag got past before they could react. HOWEVER, the old timers, such as the 45 Colt, were slow enough that the snake actually struck the bullet, thus committing suicide.

might explain why some of the old timers claimed to be great shots - and took the head off a rattler every time! :lol:
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by GunnyMack »

Rattlers are pit vipers, their snouts are lined with heat sensing, infrared sights if you will. Bullets make heat thru friction traveling through air so yeah I can believe it.
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Rusty »

Around my place when things get serious and I have time I go for the 870. Black snakes can stay they're cool. Cotton mouths and rattlers not so much. That said in 38 years at Mi Casa I've never see a venomous snake. The black snakes keep them away.
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Bill in Oregon »

Here in New Mexico, the buzzers come with the territory. I tend to think of them as the hantavirus control program that the state and taxpayers can't afford. Mostly they just want a mouse dinner and a chance to curl up under a creosote bush for a nap.
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by mickbr »

I leave snakes be in the outdoors, around the house is different. They get whatever is handy, usually a shovel, sometimes a 410 with birdshot. No way snakes can intercept bullets, they aren't faster than mongooses, I don't think their even faster than cats, neither of them can bite incoming bullets. :?
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Merle »

mickbr wrote: Sun Oct 28, 2018 10:21 am I leave snakes be in the outdoors, around the house is different. They get whatever is handy, usually a shovel, sometimes a 410 with birdshot. No way snakes can intercept bullets, they aren't faster than mongooses, I don't think their even faster than cats, neither of them can bite incoming bullets. :?

too bad you didn't watch the video...
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by mickbr »

I'm not sure what they were showing on that video. Google any cat vs snake video, every one has kitty batting snakes about the head, snake retaliating with strikes, cat bouncing back etc. No doubt a few cats get killed fooling about like this but the point is they can score easily on snakes and I doubt they are moving at 600 miles an hour...
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by jeepnik »

Last one .45acp. I usually prefer to just leave them be, but I almost stepped on it. My fault entirely.
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Ji in Hawaii »

Back when I was a little kid growing up in Japan I remember my Ojiichan (Grampa) walking the perimeter of his small farm with his walking staff searching the tall grass for Mamushi a type of Japanese viper. He would dispatch them with a single blow of his Bo (staff). This served two purposes. One, it protected his grand children from being bit by this venomous creature, and two he used these snakes to make a tonic by putting thm in a bottle then cover the snake with Sho-Chu a clear Japanese liquor similar to vodka. If I recall he had in his room at least 6 of these bottles each bottle a month older than the next. Each morning he would take a shot of this "Mamushi Sake" for medicinal purposes. Before we moved to Hawai'i I found out the property was actually my Dad's that he had purchased back in 1949 so my grandparents his inlaws and bride-to-be would have a nice place to live. The property was sold in 1965. I will be returning to Japan for the first time in 53 year hopefully this fall or next spring. I want to visit the site of the old farmstead.

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In Okinawa they do something similar but they use their native venomous snake the Habu, and their liquor Awamori. I learned that Mexicans do the same using rattlesnakes and tequila. Save your snakes boys, and pickle them in booze, it'll cure what ails you! :wink:
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Paladin »

Mojave Green rattlesnakes before I just killed them.
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by marlinman93 »

Never have figured out how those shovels, rakes, and other such tools worked? Always have to have somebody show me, and then I forget 5 minutes later and need to be retrained.
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by crs »

Any snake in the chicken house is bad. Same for any human habitation, including porches.
Bad snakes die.

Naturally, this reminds me of a hunting story.
In Colorado, rattlers may be collected or killed only in season. :shock:
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by MingoKid »

We used to get rat snakes and black snakes in the unattached 2 car garage. I found that using "TomCat" brand rat and mouse poison cookie dough like blocks, the food source would be gone. Without the food the underwear soilers seem to have gone elsewhere.
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by JerryB »

The years that I lived in south Florida My old Colt SAA .45 took a bunch of rattle snakes and cotton mouth moccasins. Most of them lost their head, most be some to that big old 255 grain slug story.
Where we live here in Arkansaw I killed a lot of copper heads in the yard around the house.
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by fordwannabe »

I finally met a snake I really liked....course by the time I met him he had already made a trip through the Nocona boot company and is now a size 15 WIDE :mrgreen:
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Blaine »

Depends on how close the snake...
Grandpa swore that all you had to do it shoot close to the head and it would strike at bullet and kill itself.
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Ysabel Kid »

I find a katana works best for close-range work in a neighborhood setting... :wink:
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Buck Elliott »

Over the last dozen+ lustrums, I have perpetrated the demise of several hundred rattlesnakes, a couple copperheads, and a smattering of water moccasins, and other slithery vermin,from the forested mountains and deserts of Utah, Idaho, Montana an Wyoming, to the backyard swamps of Florida. I've employed rocks, sticks, hoes, shovels, rifles, six guns and shotguns -even a Daisy RedvRyder BB gun - as tools in this deadly pursuit. Decades ago, I concocted home-made .45 Colt shotshells, using .45 gas checks as over-shot and over-powder wads. Once I could get my hands on CCI shot cartridges, andvlater, empty shot capsules, that became my go-to loading method. I try to keep a good stock of Snake loads on hand.
Another favorite was their .22 WMR shot load, featuring a little plastic capsule filled with #12 shot.
A 7 1/2" six gun is the perfect platform, as the vast majority of kills were between 6 inches to 4 for distance. My .22 was a Colt Frontier "Buntline", that I often packed when working horses.
Snakes seem to be fascinated by long, dark holes, and would often seem to be peering fight up the barrel, which resulted in numerous snake heads vanishing completely at the shot.
The nicest thing about small shot is that it soesnt go bouncing and skipping of across the countryside, after shredding a snake, ot impacting the ground.
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Scott Tschirhart
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Scott Tschirhart »

I have always been a snake killing son of a b%^&*. My grandpa instilled in me a fear of rattlesnakes becasue there were a lot of rattlesnakes around in those days and kids and dogs get bit if they are not careful.

Since the influx of the wild pig population, I rarely see a snake and I have not killed one in several years.

My favored snake medicine was and probably always will be a J frame Smith in .22 or .22 Magnum with CCI shotshells. This combo keeps me out of range and kills better than a rock.

On a side note, my great grandparents did not have a blade of grass in their yard. No place for a snake to hide in that yard. Their hoes were worn down from constant re-sharpening on a big rotating stone. The ground around the porch was littered with .22 short cases, not for the snakes, but for the squirrels who came to raid the pecan trees. Life was harder, but simpler back then.
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by JimT »

My wife's motto was "IF IT WIGGLES, SQUISH IT!"
In Africa she became some of the young girls heroine when a snake invaded their dorm in the orphanage and my wife charged in with a catana and chopped said snake into little bits.
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by piller »

My Dad bought some piglets one year when he ws a kid. Well, the piglets grew and they sold some of them and kept some for meat. The next time, his Dad bought some, too. When the second batch of pigs were almost full grown, an old abandoned homestead that was about a quarter mile North of his home, on land his parents owned, had become infested with rattlesnakes. His Dad herded some of the pigs up to the place and those pigs started hunting and eating rattlesnakes. My Dad says that he still is amazed at watching one pig eating a snake from the tail up. The snake repeatedly struck at the pig, and the pig just kept on eating. It didn't seem to bother the pig at all. My Dad says that the nest of rattlesnakes was wiped out and he never saw any around there again.

A hoe can kill a snake, but it seems that pigs can, too.
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by MS 9x56 »

When my kids were young 5 and 7 every Saturday morning we would grab their BB guns and head to the driveway. I had lived the driveway with old railroad ties and the snakes loved them. I would flip the ties and they would shoot the snakes with their BB guns. Both grew up to be crack shots and neither shoots snakes anymore. They did look forward to our "safaris" as they called them for several years. Never seemed to run out of snakes. Then they would toss them in the road and shoot the crows that came for the snakes. Simpler times and country fun. I haven't killed a snake poisonous or otherwise in 25 years but those were great times. Son and daughter still raze each other about who killed more.
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Re: Shovels and Rakes and.....

Post by Mike Armstrong »

Most of the urban and suburban inhabitants of SoCal don't have much of anything to do with nature so are unaware that we have TONS of rodents and therefore lots of snakes. The few times they go out into the not-very-wild lands they seem to be unaware of anything except getting their clothes dirty. Flip-flops and shorts are common even in brushy areas.

I work as a volunteer in a couple of environmental reserves and "interact" with the public quite a bit. The fact that there are rattlers all over the place seems a new concept to many. When I mention that they should stay on the trails and not let their dogs run off trail and their toddlers toddle off into the grass, they are either astonished that we let such menaces exist or think my advice amounts to "government over-reach" and an infringement on their civil rights....

However, I do have some facts about snake bites and if they will shut up and look at the pix, I can show them what a rattler bite does to a dog (super-ugly IF the pup survives and expensive either way) and the stats on effects on rattler bites on humans. Usually sobering, but not always. Some of the people I talk to just go right home! I hope the rest keep their eyes and ears open when they are off the blacktop, but I suspect many don't.

Fortunately our species of rattlers are extremely non-aggressive, although very venomous. Usually they slide down the nearest ground squirrel hole (and it isn't a long slither in most places) and disappear. If not, they coil and rattle and usually won't strike unless they're touched or almost touched.

I suspect most Leverguns people are or have been hunters and are very aware of their surroundings, no matter where they are. That's all it takes to avoid rattlers.

But people who are used to "reality" only being important when it's on a phone screen are endangered basically everywhere....every trip is a potential death trip.

I only shoot animals I intend to eat, and that leaves out snakes of all kinds. And I have seen one nasty of example of the hard ground "shooting back" at a guy who was shooting at a "rattler" (which turned out to be a gopher snake--rookie mistake!). A squashed .22 hollowpoint hitting your ankle joint sideways will ruin your hunt and your day and likely your gait.

I recommend saving your ammo. If the critter is in your garage, your garden, or your boat, I find a long-handled shovel doesn't ricochet much or break any laws.
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