Is This Even Possible??

[Flanker]

Oh yea....................I forgot my own "near death rattlesnake experience".

1973.................I was unemployed suddenly; looking for work...............got a gig with a local Christmas Tree farmer (MI exports LOTS of Christmas trees out of state/country). It was June or July, and a crew of us were in a plantation trimming trees (plastic leg guard, R handed people walk around the tree counter clockwise, with a long VERY SHARP knife, using a slanted top to bottom slashing motion to cone shape the trees). It was about the middle of the day, and as I'm trimming this tree I hear a funny noise. I stop, and the noise stops as I'm looking around. I start trimming again, and the noise starts again. I stop........noise stops. WTF??!!! A couple of slow test slashes on the tree, and I narrow the noise source down to the base of the tree (grown down to hug the ground very closely). I poke the base area a couple times, and get the funny noise both of 'em. So, I get down on my hands and knees, and begin parting the ground hugging branches with my hands, and as it's pretty dark and shaded inside the base of the tree I've got my mug shoved right up in there to see better (guess where this story is going?). Suddenly!!!!! I'm eyeball to eyeball with the funny noise source; ****ing rattlesnake!!!! :yikes: It's a Massasauga rattler, pretty sure it's the smallest of the US rattler species. If you get one that's more than 12 inches........................it's a monster. Size didn't matter in this particular surprised panic stricken state though!!!! I jumped to my feet like I was spring loaded and immediately defended my virginity against the 8-10 inch vicious snake aggressor with my knife. Just goes to show you don't always need a Vegamatic from Ron Popeil to turn :cus: into very much smaller pieces!!!! Poor snake!!

https://images.search.yahoo.com/ima...n=11dsh2ejc&.crumb=gcnFzKdXMjC&fr=yfp-t-295-s

 

[Bob Denman]

FACT, FACT, FACT!! This snake was killed about 3 miles from where I lived last year, Midway,
Ga. (No that is not why I moved)
Also, I was in an antique store near Watkinsville, Ga. last year. The owner of the store, retired professor from the University of Ga, asked me where I was from. I said Glennville, Ga. His face lit up and he told me to follow him back to the front of the store. He then showed me a picture of a gentlemen holding a rattlesnake, on a stick I might add. It was killed in a cabbage patch near Glennville, Ga. The snake was almost 10 feet long with 17 rattles. The picture was several years old.

Thanks for the "Other side of the story". :thumbup:
So many folks are talented with Photoshop anymore; it's tough to tell where the truth ends... :shocked:


Biggest snake I ever danced with, was on a seven-foot Blacksnake...
Delaware Water Gap: 1978
Big and mean, but pretty darn harmless!
A whole bunch of us recent graduates from Rider College, were going on a Co-Ed camping trip in the Gap. Us guys were forging on ahead; while the ladies chatted and dragged their feet... :gaah:
We see this critter lying in the trail; all coile up... :shocked:
He ain't moving out of the way...
The other guys with me started acting like a bunch of girls; so I just found a forked stick, held his head down, and grabbed him by the ears! :roflblack:
He coiled around my arm, and wasn't giving a very gentle squeeze... I figured it best to stretch him out, and pictch him down over the bank...
I ran out of armlength (70" wingspan) LONG before I ran out of snake :yikes:
About this time, the woman started getting too close; so I had to give him the heave-ho, before he ruined their festive spirits... :thumbup:
He was a real beauty!

 

[gnirtsnod]

FACT, FACT, FACT!! This snake was killed about 3 miles from where I lived last year, Midway,
Ga. (No that is not why I moved)
Also, I was in an antique store near Watkinsville, Ga. last year. The owner of the store, retired professor from the University of Ga, asked me where I was from. I said Glennville, Ga. His face lit up and he told me to follow him back to the front of the store. He then showed me a picture of a gentlemen holding a rattlesnake, on a stick I might add. It was killed in a cabbage patch near Glennville, Ga. The snake was almost 10 feet long with 17 rattles. The picture was several years old.

Attending the Rattlesnake Roundup in Claxton, Georgia, made a believer out of me. I was surprised at the number of HUGE eastern diamondbacks caught and displayed.

 

[Bob Denman]

Up here; they're protected! :gaah:
You'd probably get in more trouble for killing one of them, than if you shot the DEC Officer; who showed up to arrest you... nojoke