Ran across this guy while hiking yesterday.

[frigginchi]

I carry a Sjambok when I go hiking. Snake in the wild is ok. Snake around camp or home is lunch.

http://www.coldsteel.com/sjambok.html

[asheron2]

If the snake is in a dangerous spot, like hiding on the side of the trail, i tend to kill them. I also kill the ones that do not rattle. They are a hazard to other unsuspecting people and their pets.

Remember, dont forget your fishing license :P

[Aesop]

The bit is still toxic

Not toxic, my friend. Toxic=venomous.
The word you're looking for is "infectious".

[dvcrsn]

Noah, nice pics. I live in RPV, and a 3 foot rattler came up from the canyon--and I am truly glad that my Labrador kept his distance while he barked his head off. For those that enjoy hiking, you might want to get a sjambok (think 42 to 54 inch riding crop)

[bsg]

nice pictures.

[Falstaff]

Have you seen the "parson's walls" popular in Folsom, EDH, Lincoln, granite bay areas near Sacramento? They are SNAKE HEAVEN! We cleared land to build homes in those cities, and the popular thing to do is make the retaining walls with non mortared rock. (Big ones on the bottom, smaller at the top. Anyway, we put in all these walls separating each lot, near the property line. When the fence guys came in after the houses were done, they drill post holes near the back side of the rock retaining walls, well there are voids and nooks and crannies inside these retaining walls that the snakes LOVE to hide in during the day. Sometimes, when they'd pull the auger out to move to the next hole, snakes would come boiling out too! It got so bad that the sales ladies were crying that they "couldnt sell houses" because of the snakes. We had this snake wrangler guy come in and he would stick cold water hoses in there and the snakes will just start coming out. Well after we got dozens of snakes outta the model complexes, guess what happened next? Friggin gopher/Vole populaton explosion- those little bahstads musta been the snakes main food source, once the snakes were reduced, these guys DECIMATED 10's of thousands in landscape around our super high end model homes...I stopped all the snake killing after that; when the sales ladies whined to the proj. manager, and they tell me to go "take care of it" I just started relocating them. I'll take the snakes over the rodents any day now....

Another incident of 'unintended consequences" related to this snake phobia/panic: After the snake population was wiped out and the gophers and vole population went parabolic, all the homeowners starting putting out vole poison, well, one ladies dog ate some, he died. THe skunks ate it, died, then the turkey vultures started eating the dead skunks- they friggin died too- the UGLIEST 6' bird you've EVER seen. Everything was dieing save for the GD rodents...Thank god no kids picked any up- (some of the vole poisons look just like gummy worms candy)

[faterikcartman]

If you can take the time to shoot a rattler with a .22 you can walk around it, or away from it. I can't imagine ever needing to shoot one. The only way you're going to get bit is if you stumble on one, and at that point it is too late to shoot it anyway. I had one in my garage a few months ago; I took care of business with a broom and cardboard box and let it go in the boonies a few hundred yards away. I'm sure it's obvious I'm not in to killing predators for *****s and giggles. The only way you're going to "get in trouble" with a rattler so that you should, and will have the opportunity to kill it, is if you really should be in a library or some other safe place rather than the great outdoors.

I didn't read the thread, but I'm praying I'm not alone in this thinking.

[gotime]

I carry a Sjambok when I go hiking. Snake in the wild is ok. Snake around camp or home is lunch.

http://www.coldsteel.com/sjambok.html

that commercial is a joke.. they prove it's "deadly" effectiveness by showing 2 minutes of guys hitting cardboard, apples, eggs (come on really?!?), and watermelons...

[Dubious_Beans]

Acckkkk! You guys and your talk about rattlesnakes..! You went attracted one to my front door this afternoon.

I did "chores" around the house this morning.
About 11AM the wife leaves and goes to town to shop and have lunch with friends. That leaves me free to do what I want for a couple of hours.
By 11:30AM I'm up the hill target shooting.
Aprox 1:30PM I came back down the hill and enter the house via the front door. I drank some water, put on some shorts and sandals, and grabbed a bucket full of brass to take out to the tumbler in the shop.
Aprox 1:50PM I open the front door and take ONE step out and YIKES! there's a big fat rattlesnake laying on the walk, right up against the house. If I had taken 2 more steps I would have stepped within 16" of it.

I closed the door, went out a side door and grabbed my "snake stick" and killed it.
It managed to slither into some bushes, so it was a PITA to make sure it was dead and get it fished out of the bushes it, but I got it.
Here's the headless wonder now. It's about 33" long without the head. Damned glad the wife or I didn't step on it...




Here's one of my "snake sticks". I kill 2 or 3 rattlers every year right around the house.

It's 8 feet of electrical conduit with a "blade" on each end. The square end has an angle of a little less than 90 degrees so it can be used in corners, where a wall or curb meets the ground.





I love most of the snakes around here. We have a nice assortment of harmless ones and I do my best to steer them out of harms way.
But the rattlers scare the hell out of me and I kill them any time I catch them anywhere near the house... .
.

[Dubious_Beans]

Since the snake subject has come up, maybe some of you will be amused by the photos I took last year of a very small gopher snake eating a rather large bat...

http://www.weirdstuffwemake.com/sweetwatergems/photos/carnivore.html

D.Beans

[robairto]

I move around them typically and move them off trails when I see them. No biggee.

[robairto]

ummm

No limit, no season, no take restrictions, no license required for rattlesnakes.

Fishing license for reptiles, rattle snakes are excluded from this as stated.

[robairto]

well

Just a warning, the babies are the most dangerous. They haven't yet learned how to regulate venom flow, so you get a full dose every time. .

Urban myth. They are capable of a dry strike at any age and will as the circumstances dictate per the snake.