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I've seen that courtship ritual on the Discovery or Animal channel, but doubt many have seen it up close and personal in real life. I've had a couple of run ins with Buzz tails over the years. It always seems to happen when your mind is elsewhere.
For you guys with dogs, they make a K9 rattlesnake innoculation. You get one, and a month later you get another then annually. I've got my dog set up to get the vac during her normal annual shot cycle. If you dog gets bit, it still need treatment by a vet, but the reaction is supposed to be significantly less severe.
I had two large black rat snakes do the "love dance" behind me while I was trying to call up a turkey last spring. It sure made it hard to concentrate on my calling!
Derek aka "shootnfan"
Middle Tennessee
24 hours in a day.....24 beers in a case. Coincidense? I think not.
brucew44guns wrote:You best be 12 feet tall, and have the boots to go with that height!!. I killed one in Lake Village, Arkansas about 6 feet, looked like one of those.
The Game and Fish dept. Stock the dang things in the National Forest here.
Blackhawk wrote:Are they courting or fighting? Don't snakes fight like that too? Rear up and knock each other to the ground? How can you tell the difference?
Johnny
I'm not sure I can! Of course, I dated a girl for a while and I never was sure about it then either!!!!
Blackhawk wrote:Are they courting or fighting? Don't snakes fight like that too? Rear up and knock each other to the ground? How can you tell the difference?
Johnny
I'm not sure I can! Of course, I dated a girl for a while and I never was sure about it then either!!!!
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin
Kilroy6644 wrote:Did you at least let them finish?
Bet Scott got 'em mid-cigarette!
Tom
Tom
'A Man's got to have a code...
I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted and I won't be laid a hand on.
I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them." -John Bernard Books. Jan. 22, 1901
Hope you eat 'em. If not, thats a lot of good meat to go to waste.
I must confess, I usually do not shoot snakes, even poisonous ones, unless they are way too close to the house. But I also realize that for some that translates into, "If they are alive they are way, way too close- already!"
Grace and Peace,
Pastordon Pastordon's Blog
The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. (1 Cor. 8:2)
There's an old timer that lives in Washington State during the summer and winters somewhere in Texas. He brought out a frozen eight foot long rattler he killed in Texas. He says people don't believe there's rattlers that big down there and when they say that he proves them wrong. It's a big ball of snake to be sure.
I saw two water moccasins at the edge of a tank doing about the same thing at my lease. They were about the same size. We kill poisonous snakes anytime we see one on our lease. Like the owner says rattlers and moccasins kill as many cattle as predators. Sometimes they survive but sometimes they don't. With the price of cattle as high as it is, it is a big loss to a rancher. Also, if the animal is just crippled by the bite then the coyotes take it down easier. We lost a small bull that way. I wear snake boots during the warm weather in Texas myself, but snakes that big can hit much higher so you must be on yours "toes" at all times. Maybe 2 by 4s with foot pads would be better.
That is a mating ritual. When I was 13 I was squirrel hunting back in the woods behind my house in South Georgia in late August when I heard some thumping. Looked down in the woods and two 6 foot Timber rattlers were doing that and then falling back down. Called up to the house and my dad brought down a .410 and I killed both with one shot. A few feet away we found another one in the hollow of a tree. Talked to a Univ. of Georgia professor and he said it was a mating ritual, that the two were males and the separate one was the female. Those Timber rattles were the biggest we had heard of, the diamondbacks can get quite a bit bigger.
It was the strangest thing I have ever seen.
A side note on snake boots. We had our picture taken for the local paper and I had on a pair of tennis shoes with black socks and my dad had on his knee high snake boots. He caught a lot of grief from his pals.
The entire article is worth reading -- here are the final two paragraphs from the article.
"Above all, even if the bitten dog has been vaccinated, it should still be considered an emergency, and veterinary care should be sought.
The vaccine’s purpose is to lessen snakebite reactions so that the reactions would be less severe and have a higher percentage of survival and result in a decreased rate of illness in dogs that are bitten by rattlesnakes."
If I remember it was sometime in the early 1980's when the Arkansaw game people turned me into an outlaw.No rattle tails on this ridge but lots of copperheads.
JerryB II Corinthians 3:17, Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
SmokeEater2 wrote:Snakes,even the poison ones are protected in Arkansas. That lil' law has made a criminal out of me a time or two.
Do you have a source you would share?
Johnny
Johnny, I looked through the Hunting Regs booklet and couldn't find it so I went to the local Game and Fish Office and asked.
They confirmed that it's against the law to kill snakes of any kind in AR UNLESS it's attacking you. They said it's illegal to kill any animal that does not have a hunting season open (like snakes,songbirds etc.) with fines from $500.00-$2000.00.
The Warden I talked to said his advice was to wait until there wasn't a Game Warden around before killing snakes.
FWiedner is right. The rattlers in February are hibernating in rock quarries mostly here in Texas, but if it gets unusually warm in month of February they don't pay attention to the date and they become active. I wear snake boots as soon as it warms up. I have had too many close calls to not do it. Even when it's cool I look around real good before I squat to go number 2!
SmokeEater2 wrote:Snakes,even the poison ones are protected in Arkansas. That lil' law has made a criminal out of me a time or two.
Do you have a source you would share?
Johnny
Johnny, I looked through the Hunting Regs booklet and couldn't find it so I went to the local Game and Fish Office and asked.
They confirmed that it's against the law to kill snakes of any kind in AR UNLESS it's attacking you. They said it's illegal to kill any animal that does not have a hunting season open (like snakes,songbirds etc.) with fines from $500.00-$2000.00.
The Warden I talked to said his advice was to wait until there wasn't a Game Warden around before killing snakes.
SmokeEater2,
Thanks for sharing. I looked and couldn't find it either.
I guess I'll be an outlaw.
Johnny
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin