everything is bigger in Texas!

Yep, it's a rattler. Biggest I have ever seen. The picture was taken in TX. but posted to the Wyoming Radio site. You can see the rattle at the end of its tail if you look close.
 
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I was outside ot Tucumcari. New Mexico one year and they burned out an old adobe building that someone has stored hay in. When the snakes came out they killed a six and a half footer with a 12ga scattergun. Ten+ years ago I came across a 5+ foot Mojave Rattler down hear the Mexican border. They say when that one bites you, just sit and pray because you will never make it to your car. On a later hunt MarinePMI of this site darned near stepped on one somewhat larger. Only the spring in his 6'3" frame cleared him of the encounter. The buzz of its rattles sounded like a chain saw. Scary stuff.~Muir
 
I was on a hunt near Carlsbad in 1994 when my partner killed one with the butt of his shotgun as he did not want to spook the muleys we were after, it was 5 feet long as he was holding it up next to him and he was only 5 foot 3 tall.
Martin
 
Is that not 1 of them visual ilusions too, like the boy in papers with a 4ft rat?

Looks a big bloody snake right enough.

Aye we dunno how lucky we are over here with so few bitey things.

1 of the farms i worked on in OZ, managers wife came into our cottage to warn us a 6ft Brown going about outside, yet u see her young kids running about bare foot playing in sand pits etc just as i'd done as a bairn, just they know wot to do when they find a snake, unlike us.
The other farm workers had a habit of putting dead ones in back of my ute under bags etc, the joke never worn off for them. B*****d's
 
Well I never, that would give you the shivers on encountering it. Mighty big rattler right enough.

M
 
I was reminded re-reading this of two other snake encounters in New Mexico. The first was when I was walking across the desert between Las Lunas and the San Juam indian pueblo. A friend and I were hunting jacks with handguns and we stopped. My friend glances down and quietly says, "uh. don't move. there's a rattle snake coiled by your left foot...." I looked down to see a 2 footer looking up at me. I went about 3 feet straight up and whilst airborne (or so the recounting went) I drew and fired 6 shots from my Ruger Black Hawk .357 at the snake. Never touched it. It slithered away, disinterested. On a different hunt, on the Rio Puerco river canyon about 5 miles west of that spot, the same friend and I were climbing up the canyon wall after a very frustrating hunt. The place we chose to climb out was almost a natural ladder but not an easy climb and we were about 10 ft from the top -and 100 ft from my old '51 Willy's Jeep- when I pulled my head up and there was a rattle snake on the ledge I was going to next. I ducked my head down and looked back towards the canyon floor we'd need to climb back down to and said f-it. Pulled my Redhawk .44, pointed it over the top of the ledge, and emptied it double action. When I looked over the ledge the snake was gone but for a little bit of scale. I probably missed for most part. Snakes can be darned hard to hit.~Muir
 
Yes, an Eastern Diamondback that size is a monster, and old and rare snake.

I know of two professional snake catchers killed by ones a foot smaller than that, both bitten in South Carolina. My daughter and I saw one that large under a picnic table at a rest stop north of Orangeburg, SC, a decade ago. It could barely slide through a hog wire fence, which is 6x6 inches, to get back to the cool woods. We stood way back and it was still scary.
 
Jeez.... Do they do snake boots in chin height.

muir that's a great couple of stories, rather you than me.
 
Jeez.... Do they do snake boots in chin height.

muir that's a great couple of stories, rather you than me.
I have a healthy respect for poisonous snakes but no real fear of snakes in general. The best fun I've had with a snake was to stop by a prairiedog town and pick up a gigantic bull snake -a good rattler look alike but harmless- and take it back to the company shop. I was running a concrete crew on the Rez one summer under the supervision of a fat jerk named Paul. When I got back to the shop I dug the snake out from under the seat of my truck, ran around the building, and tossed it into Paul's already running, air conditioned company truck. Then I hid. He came waddling out and slid into his pickup. Suddenly there was a flurry of activity inside the truck with him pressed up against the driver's side window and flailing around. He gets the door open and spills out, then reaches into the map pocket on the door and pulls out a Colt Python .357 and empties it into the cab of the truck. He did all kinds of damage to the truck but missed the snake. I laughed myself sick.
Somehow he knew I was the one responsible...~Muir
 
Now then Cuz. I remember the one, my only one, we saw out at Rays place when we prairie dogging. It was as I recall about two feet long, in accordance with Ray's wishes it was shot on sight. To my mind a very wise decision :).

John
 
Now then Cuz. I remember the one, my only one, we saw out at Rays place when we prairie dogging. It was as I recall about two feet long, in accordance with Ray's wishes it was shot on sight. To my mind a very wise decision :).

John
We probably sat or walked within feet of dozens of them over those weeks of shooting.
Snakes are OK. The freaking badgers will chase you for a quarter mile....:eek:~Muir
 
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