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OkieJoe

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Spring is a beautiful time of year except for two things. The first is mowing, and the second are these damn things.
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I have a healthy respect (fear) for rattlesnakes, and I’ve had a few close calls over the years. When I was about 10 years old, I’m certain that I set a record for the long jump when one of these bastards struck at me. I caught this one today strolling across my driveway heading for the horse pasture. He’s not a giant, but he got my attention. I ran him over twice with my truck and then got the hoe after him. I cut the rattles off before I remembered to take a pic. The rattles were given to a neighbor’s friend that is visiting from back east somewhere. Before I gave her the rattles, I couldn’t resist having a little fun. I placed the snake by the neighbor’s front door and knocked on the door. I hid around the corner and got to watch some funky dance moves while hearing some new cuss words.
 
I’ve run across two Pygmy rattlers at my place (beautiful snakes, but had to be ended because of my bark bark of remarkably few brains who wouldn’t leave them alone), but nothing like that. The closest was a copperhead that ended up as a matched pair of 18” and 6” snakes after it struck at me and I set a world record for the backwards standing long jump off of one’s back foot.

I have no beef with snakes unless they’re venomous and near the house. That goes double for copperheads—those sonsabeeches are just mean—but I’ll even give them a pass as long as they’re not near the house or pets. Unless they strike at me; then all bets are off.
 
Most of the snakes I’ve been inclined to kill were prairie rattlers. I’ve had very few run ins with western diamond backs. Timbers and Pygmy’s occasionally. Copperheads and moccasins more than any of the others except prairie rattlers, I seem to run into them quite often in my limited time spent in their domain. I’m not a snake hater, but if venomous and within 10ft, they usually don’t make it.

Most of them eat pretty good…
 
I've seen numerous rattlers on the west side of the state through the years, and one on talimena.

Big fat one bout size round of my wrist on road going into apache, I was on bike, i rode on edge go way around it.
 
I've seen numerous rattlers on the west side of the state through the years, and one on talimena.

Big fat one bout size round of my wrist on road going into apache, I was on bike, i rode on edge go way around it.
Apache has an annual rattlesnake festival, and the majority of the snakes are taken from the slick hills which is a couple miles north of me. My general area is a great habitat for diamondbacks.

@HoLeChit that was a good size rattler. Hope you saw him before you heard him. Nothing worse than hearing them rattle and not being able to see them.
 
Timber rattlers are bad up here and another has been showing up last couple years I’m sure I’ll misspell it (Masagua??)
 
Timber rattlers are bad up here and another has been showing up last couple years I’m sure I’ll misspell it (Masagua??)
Never heard of that one. I had to look it up. You got close enough on the spelling for the google machine.
 
Apache has an annual rattlesnake festival, and the majority of the snakes are taken from the slick hills which is a couple miles north of me. My general area is a great habitat for diamondbacks.

@HoLeChit that was a good size rattler. Hope you saw him before you heard him. Nothing worse than hearing them rattle and not being able to see them.
He was straddling the majority of the gravel road I was on. Ended up deciding that he was my snake for the year, as I had never seen one that big, so I made him mine. Took 2 rounds of snake shot and 2 22 shells. Kinda felt bad killing such a monster, but I hunt squirrels a lot in the area and the next week I was picking up my puppy. I figured that one less snake in the same place I was taking my pup was a good thing.

That’s my full size 12-14ish inch khukri in his mouth, he could close his mouth around my blade. IMG_9063.jpeg
Here’s another picture of the knife with a few things for reference on size nearby, although the angle is weird. IMG_4581.png
 
Timber rattlers are bad up here and another has been showing up last couple years I’m sure I’ll misspell it (Masagua??)
Massasauga. They have a real pretty pattern. We have them here in SWOK...at least all over Ft. Sill and surrounding areas. In all, I've killed four on Sill (30 years ago), one in my neighborhood here about 6 years ago, and poked one with a stick at our place in Cyril. I've killed several pygmy rattlers next to my garage over the last 5-8 years-ish.

The Karens on our FB page are always posting up pics of massasaugas they find in their yards asking what kind and who to call to get it.

It looks like this? They only get maybe 2 feet long. They're not real big like diamonbacks or timbers

Massasauga-Rattlesnake-Pictures-1147245038.jpg
 
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It looks like the picture I was shown I know guys that have killed Pygmy’s around here but I’ll I have ever seen are timbers several of them
 
Haven't seen a rattle snake on my place yet. But have seen copperheads a handful of times.
 
We’ve bagged probably a half dozen or so pygmies here at the house. You have to take a double take generally because of their size. Can’t hear them rattle but they sure want to act big. Over at the ranch it’s copperhead central with the occasional cottonmouth. The folks put a chain link fence up for their little dogs. I blew four or five copperheads up in the corner with a backpack leaf blower when I was cleaning up the yard. They don’t like that very much and seriously disturbs their normally jovial moods.
 
We’ve bagged probably a half dozen or so pygmies here at the house. You have to take a double take generally because of their size. Can’t hear them rattle but they sure want to act big. Over at the ranch it’s copperhead central with the occasional cottonmouth. The folks put a chain link fence up for their little dogs. I blew four or five copperheads up in the corner with a backpack leaf blower when I was cleaning up the yard. They don’t like that very much and seriously disturbs their normally jovial moods.
Hahahaha.......see no big rattlers at my central ok place,

but there's a shitload of copperheads, pigmys and water moccasins/cottonmouths to watch for.

Lots of black snakes too, but they're not poisonous, so beside eatin chicken eggs & baby chicks I let them be,

Garter snakes pretty thick here too.
 
Was all three together, or just around the yard?
 
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