Why I Still Hunt Rattlesnakes After a Near-Fatal Bite

This story, “As soon as Too Typically,” appeared within the July 1966 difficulty of Out of doors Life.

The snake was stretched full size on an enormous, flat rock, and it was the largest timber rattler I’d ever seen.

I wasn’t actually snake searching that Sunday afternoon. It was the third week in July, not the perfect time to search out both rattlers or copperheads, and I’d climbed the mountain above Lovelton, about 20 miles from house, principally to examine on some small mountain ash timber I hoped to dig up and transplant later. I knew I’d be in snake nation, nevertheless, and I used to be carrying a forked stick, snake hook, and muslin bag simply in case.

I’d sat out a heavy thundershower in my automotive earlier than beginning up the previous logging highway that led to the ledge the place the timber had been. Though the solar had come out once more, the air was humid, and every part was soaking moist. All in all, I didn’t anticipate to come across any snakes, and I dropped my guard and did one thing I’m normally cautious to not do.

In a snake space you don’t stroll round gazing all around the countryside. As a substitute, you think about a small semicircular space in entrance of you and to the left and proper as you stroll. In that approach, though it’s common to get near a rattler earlier than you see it, you’re prepared, and there’s not a lot likelihood it is going to take you without warning.

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I wasn’t doing that, nevertheless. I used to be wandering alongside, trying round, and was simply two steps from the snake after I noticed it. I’m not afraid of snakes, however this one gave me an actual begin. The sight of it out within the open, thick-bodied and sinister, was one thing I’ll keep in mind so long as I stay. Our timber rattlers within the Pennsylvania mountains have two shade phases, black and yellow. Colour shouldn’t be associated to the intercourse of the snake. This was a black one with blotches faintly outlined in pale yellow, a phenomenal however lethal trying animal.

The snake had not made a sound. With out transferring from my tracks, I reached over and pinned him behind the pinnacle with my forked stick. The response was violent. The snake rattled angrily, thrashed wildly, and sprayed appreciable rattlesnake musk or scent.

This musk is emitted from two scent glands, one on both aspect of the vent. If the tail is off the bottom, as an example, when the snake is being dealt with or bagged, it may well spray the musk three ft or extra. The odor of the musk has been in contrast with that of sliced cucumbers, freshly mowed thistles, and varied different issues. My very own feeling is that it doesn’t actually odor like something however rattler musk. It’s not disagreeable, however when you are available contact with it, you’re not more likely to overlook the odor. This time, due to the humidity, the scent appeared to hold within the air. Beneath these situations I’d have recognized I used to be very near a rattlesnake if I’d been sporting ear plugs and a blindfold. I didn’t need to take the snake house alive, one thing I regularly do. After trying it over and speculating on its size, I killed it as I normally do by severing the spine simply behind the pinnacle rapidly and cleanly with my penknife.

Then I took time to go searching.

There was a big, flat rock beside me, and when my eyes adopted its edge, I noticed the pinnacle of a second rattler simply barely exhibiting not more than 5 ft away. The remainder of the snake was again beneath the rock and there was no strategy to get it out, so I left it alone and regarded round.

You’ll be able to think about my shock after I noticed a 3rd snake about 20 ft away on the ledge, stretched out as the primary one had been. It was one other high-quality, massive specimen, and like the opposite two, it had not rattled. I walked cautiously over to the snake, pinned it, and killed it as I had the primary.

I dropped the 2 lifeless snakes into my bag with due warning. Even the freshly severed head of a rattler can ship a extreme chew, and a freshly killed snake can chew about as laborious as a stay one by reflex motion whether it is dealt with whereas the pinnacle remains to be intact.

I had turn into conscious that I used to be in a chief snake space, and I stored my eyes glued the place they belonged. I had gone not more than 75 yards after I got here throughout a fourth rattler, additionally stretched out on a rock. There will need to have been one thing concerning the humid climate that afternoon that they preferred. I killed this one, put it into the bag with the others, and determined I had sufficient. Once I measured them later, the three snakes had been 51, 47, and 45½ inches lengthy. The 51-incher was the most important I’ve ever encountered. They made fairly a load, and I had 3½ miles to hike again to my automotive, so I referred to as it quits and began down the mountain.

I hadn’t traveled 1 / 4 of a mile after I noticed two extra, one massive, the opposite small, coiled on the fringe of the logging highway. They hadn’t been there after I walked up an hour earlier than, however the favorable situations had introduced them out. That was in 1963, and I hadn’t but acquired snakeproof boots or snake tongs. Catching that pair with no instruments besides the forked stick and the hook posed an issue. I managed it by pinning one and lifting the opposite out into the highway with the hook. Then I stored the second snake on the defensive whereas I hooked the primary one out. I pinned and killed them one after the other on the highway.

My rating that afternoon was six rattlers seen and 5 killed, together with the most important I’ve ever met. Not unhealthy for a visit that wasn’t even supposed as a snake hunt.

There was one curious factor about these six snakes: not one had rattled or proven any signal of alarm or hostility till I used my forked stick, despite the fact that I used to be shut after I first noticed them and not more than a step or two away after I pinned them. It proves one factor that each snake hunter learns.

You’ll be able to’t rely on a rattle.

When you get close to sufficient, the snake’s fairly more likely to strike first and rattle afterward, if it rattles in any respect.

I’m 45 years previous, an optometrist at Pittston, Pennsylvania, about midway between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. I grew up and have lived all my life in that space, apart from 3 1/2 years within the military throughout World Battle II. I’ve fished and hunted since I used to be a boy.

I’ve been tying my very own trout flies for 25 years. Till two years in the past, I spent virtually each Wednesday from daybreak till darkish or after darkish on a trout stream, and nearly each Sunday afternoon the identical approach. That went on from the beginning of trout season till bass fishing time. Then my routine modified. From daybreak till 10 a.m. every Wednesday, I fished for bass. The remainder of the day I hunted woodchucks or crows. I’ve .22 Hornet, .220, .270, and .30/06 rifles, and I handload all my ammunition.

This exercise continued till spring of 1964. That yr, I didn’t make one journey to a trout stream or bass lake or shoot a single woodchuck. And 1965, apart from 4 or 5 transient trout-fishing jaunts, was the identical.

Why an entire and puzzling change in my lifelong habits? I acquired all for snake searching. Subsequent factor I knew, I got here down with an actual laborious case. I nonetheless hunt small sport and deer within the fall in each the gun and the archery season, however solely as a result of snakes are in hibernation then. As far as I’m involved, searching rattlers and copperheads the way in which I and some of my companions do it outranks every other out of doors sport accessible in our a part of the nation for thrills, pleasure, and a stimulating diploma of hazard. Once you go snake searching, you already know you’re after one thing that may battle again, and you’ll’t afford to overlook it for a second.

My snake searching began slowly. I’ve been all for snakes way back to I can keep in mind, however regardless of all of the fishing and searching I had achieved in rattlesnake nation, I by no means encountered one within the wild till 1957. Coming back from a fishing journey that June, simply out of Towanda I noticed a timber rattler on the highway. I finished to look it over. I’d learn that you might kill a snake by hitting it sharply behind the pinnacle with a small change. I attempted this, and it labored. I put the lifeless snake in my empty creel and took it house.

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Two weeks later, on the way in which again after one other fishing journey, the identical factor occurred.

I made a decision that if rattlers had been that plentiful within the woods, I may have enjoyable searching them. It took me fairly some time to be taught the methods. Within the first 4 years, from that June by means of the summer season of 1961, I tramped extra miles than I may even estimate, spent numerous hours looking for snakes, and located a complete of precisely 5. The difficulty, I discovered later, was that I didn’t know the place or when to look.

In 1962, issues picked up. My rating that yr climbed to 25. I matched that determine in 1963, virtually doubled it in 1964 with a kill of 48, and took 62 final yr.

Nearly all of my rattler searching is in Wyoming County, north of Pittston, within the neighborhood of Noxen, Forkston, or Lovelton. There are various different areas inside an 80-mile radius of my house that I’m positive would supply pretty much as good searching, but it surely appears simpler to return to acquainted locations. The nation I hunt has an abundance of snakes, and the den websites are straightforward to achieve. Many elderly logging roads and gameland roads, closed to automobiles, result in good ledges on the prime of the mountains.

Since 1963, I’ve picked up 4 companions who share my enthusiasm and go along with me on many hunts. One is Gerald Schaefer, whom I met that summer season. He was educating biology and finding out for his grasp’s diploma, which he now has, at Louisiana State College. Once we met, he was spending trip along with his dad and mom at Tunkhannock. He’d hunted snakes since he was in junior highschool and had studied them extensively in school. He taught me a lot of what I now know concerning the sport. The very best and most secure strategy to begin is to go on a number of journeys with an skilled snake hunter and be taught the ropes first hand.

One other associate is Glenn Spencer, who works as a upkeep man at Dalle.s for the Pennsylvania Sport Fee. Glenn has been searching snakes for 25 years. Between these two, I’ve had skilled teaching. The final two years, Barry Spencer, a son of Glenn’s cousin, has teamed up with us. He furnishes the jeep transportation. My nephew, Harold Kuschel, 17, completes our quintet of regulars.

Once we exit on Sunday afternoons with the jeep, two to 4 of us normally hunt collectively. Generally there’s an outsider alongside as spectator. On Wednesdays, I stroll, and 9 occasions out of 10 I am going alone. Searching on foot has one benefit. You will get to numerous out-of-the-way spots the jeep can’t attain.

Our searching is completed in ledge areas within the neighborhood of the winter dens. The ledges vary in top from six to 30 ft, and typically they’re a number of hundred ft lengthy. The ledges are damaged by crevices and fissures, and free rocks of all sizes lie on them and beneath them. Ferns, huckleberry bushes, and small timber present the ample cowl snakes require; they will’t survive direct daylight or excessive temperatures. The snakes hibernate in these ledges, however we now have but to find any single rock or crevice to which massive numbers return yr after yr.

We begin searching in Could, shortly after snakes emerge from hibernation. The earliest I’ve taken one was Could 5. Could and June are the best months, and success is determined by the climate, location of the ledge, and being there on a day with the fitting temperature and humidity. Typically, a rainstorm appears to be the sign for the snakes to return out, however searching them is like searching any sport — typically you discover none on what seems to be an excellent day.

I’ve learn that ledges dealing with south are finest. However early within the season, I discover extra rattlers in ledges dealing with west. The snakes mate shortly after popping out of winter quarters, and for some time they’re more likely to be present in pairs. Later, although you could discover a number of in a comparatively small space, they gained’t be mendacity collectively. Because the climate warms, the rattlers scatter in all instructions and transfer to their summer season feeding grounds, touring so far as two miles or extra. They’ve three primary necessities — meals, water, and canopy. If situations are proper, some snakes can normally be discovered across the den areas all summer season. Though rattlers do most of their searching at night time, particularly in sizzling climate, they’re additionally more likely to prowl in the course of the day.

In the summertime, each rattlers and copperheads are more likely to be discovered virtually wherever — in berry patches, yards, fields, and gardens — and even round buildings. Since picnickers, hikers, swimmers, and berry pickers are within the woods then and youngsters are at play, summer season is when most snake-bites happen. On the final journey I made to Darkish Hole for copperheads, I checked a spot that nearly unfailingly yields one or two. I discovered that each rock of appropriate measurement had been picked up and moved to construct an out of doors hearth. Why somebody wasn’t bitten on that cookout, I’ll by no means know.

We get our greatest looking for copperheads between Tunkhannock and Mehoopany, the place the Lehigh Valley Railroad parallels the north department of the Susquehanna River. Copperheads appear to thrive close to civilization higher than timber rattlers do, perhaps due to their extra secretive habits and marvelous camouflage, and in addition as a result of they don’t rattle and provides themselves away.

I don’t spend as a lot time searching copperheads as I do rattlers, however they fascinate me. The copperhead is much less to be trusted than the rattlesnake, and it’s tougher to detect, particularly if it’s coiled in lifeless leaves. Copperheads transfer faster than rattlers, however they’re not so more likely to try escape. Often they strike at something that comes inside vary, even snake tongs. 

I’ve flipped a flat rock over to seize a copperhead beneath it, solely to have the rock land alongside one other copperhead hidden in dry leaves and grapevines with out inflicting the second snake to maneuver. Copperheads are difficult, v1c10us, and more likely to stand their floor. The rattler, then again, normally has a getaway route useful and makes use of it if he can.

Happily, the copperhead’s chew is much less harmful than that of the rattlesnake. The venom is much less poisonous. An grownup copperhead averages solely about three ft in size, and a full-grown rattler near 4. Because the size of the fangs and the quantity of venom injected is determined by the dimensions of the snake (an grownup timber rattler could have fangs half an inch lengthy), the copperhead’s chew is much less deep and extreme.

The entire snakes my companions and I catch now are taken house alive. At a later date, they’re killed if there’s no demand for stay ones. I’ve been unable to search out any marketplace for them, however the Pennsylvania Sport Fee retains a number of in a show at Dallas, and Gerald Schaefer does some buying and selling with collectors in different international locations.

We don’t accumulate any innocent snakes until somebody has put in a request for them. We use do-it-yourself tongs to carry the snakes out into the open, and we use both a hook or a forked persist with pin them. A forked stick is protected sufficient if dealt with correctly and punctiliously. You can also make a passable hook by bending a ¼-inch metal rod into an L and becoming it to a damaged golf membership.

To choose up a rattler or copperhead, I first pin it by urgent the pinnacle firmly to the bottom and placing my foot on the physique or foot or so again to forestall thrashing. I put on snakeproof boots on most of my hunts now. Subsequent, I put my thumb on one aspect of the neck and my center finger on the opposite aspect. I press down on the highest of the pinnacle with my index finger. With that grip, the snake is much less capable of twist its head or free itself. Upon getting the snake laborious and quick, take away the hook, seize the physique together with your different hand, and decide the snake up. A snake lifted by the neck alone is more likely to thrash laborious sufficient to interrupt both your grip or its personal neck.

One warning — you probably have a foot on a snake’s physique, anticipate it to make use of your foot for leverage in an try to attract its head again once you first grasp it. A giant snake is sort of sturdy.

It’s finest to seize a snake rapidly after getting it pinned. The longer you maintain its head down, the extra irritated and laborious to deal with it turns into. Many bites occur when the snake is picked up, so be very cautious.

Sacking your catch is straightforward. We use muslin baggage 39 inches deep and 12 to 14 inches extensive. Get the snake began into the bag tail first. Small ones will be dropped proper in. A giant one is apt to face on its tail, so it’s essential to wait till it relaxes earlier than releasing your maintain on its neck. As soon as the snake falls to the underside, twirl the bag and tie a knot properly up on the twisted part. Once you stroll, carry the bag in order that it doesn’t bump your legs or physique. The snake can simply strike by means of the bag.

Many individuals have requested me about rattlesnake meat. I’ve learn of snake hunters who specific nice distaste for consuming what they catch, however I don’t really feel that approach. We’ve got tried contemporary rattlesnake and discover it very tasty. The meat is white and clear and jogs my memory of frogs’ legs in taste and texture. Mates who’ve tried rattler meat all report it tastes good.

There’s nothing sophisticated about our approach of cooking snake meat. We pores and skin and gown the snake. Then we lower it into three or four-inch lengths and fry it in butter or bacon fats as if it had been fish. Some cooks desire to chop the meat into steaks about half an inch thick as a result of the skinny items look much less like snake. From time to time, rattlers chew themselves of their struggles to flee — by chance I believe — but it surely’s nonetheless attainable to eat the meat. Rattler venom shouldn’t be toxic if taken internally, supplied you shouldn’t have a lower, sore, or different opening in your mouth or digestive tract, and thorough cooking destroys any venom that may be current.

If a snake hunter decide up toxic snakes typically sufficient, he stands an excellent likelihood of being bitten. One false transfer can result in bother, and it hap-pens in the end to only about all people who handles these reptiles. I knew that in addition to anyone. Nonetheless, I picked up a stay rattler as soon as too typically.

It occurred on Memorial Day of 1963. I’d handed up an opportunity to go to Canada on a fishing journey, as a result of late Could is likely one of the finest intervals for snake searching. My nephew Harold and I headed for a collection of ledges on the prime of South Mountain.

We caught one medium-size rattler, sacked it alive, discovered an enormous blacksnake, and let it go after teasing it to listen to it vibrate its tail within the dry leaves to placed on an excellent imitation of a rattlesnake’s buzzing. We ate lunch beside a transparent mountain brook, left our snake and the knapsack, and went on searching alongside Possum Brook Highway.

We had gone a couple of mile after we discovered a rattler in grass on the roadside, mendacity within the spherical coil they assume when resting. It’s under no circumstances just like the U-shaped loops of their preventing stance, though they will strike from it if they should. Harold pinned the snake, and I picked it up with my left hand. He was an excellent 44-incher. We had extracted venom from the primary one we caught, and needed a bit of extra. I prefer to maintain a small amount of the dried venom crystals readily available to point out to Boy Scout troops and different teams for whom I typically converse on snakes and snake searching. I desire to make use of my proper hand for the milking operation, so I dropped the snake on the highway, intending to select it up once more.

The rattler made a bee line for the woods. I pinned it with a forked stick in a spot lined with lifeless leaves and pine needles, and I made the cardinal mistake of not ensuring the fork was tight up in opposition to its head. Subsequent, I reached down by the aspect of its head as a substitute of developing behind the stick. That was all of the rattler wanted. It had a fraction of an inch of neck slack, sufficient to twist its head and make a lightning-fast stroke with one fang.

It lower a slit 1 / 4 of an inch lengthy in my index finger between the massive knuckle and the primary joint. My nephew was standing simply behind me however hadn’t seen what occurred.

“I’ve been bitten,” I advised him calmly. I’ve been requested many occasions how I felt then, and my inventory reply is: “Silly.”

At first, all I felt was a slight burning, and that alone didn’t essentially point out that any venom had been injected. Even a razor nick will burn. After three or 4 minutes, nevertheless, an space the dimensions of a dime across the lower turned white and began to swell. There was not any doubt: I had a real case of toxic snakebite. How severe, solely the subsequent hour or so would inform.

I used to be carrying a snakebite package, as I all the time do on my rattler hunts, however the small suction cup wouldn’t keep in place, so I sucked out what poison and blood I may by mouth. Whereas I used to be doing that, Harold sterilized the small knife from the package, and I undertook to elongate the lower and make one other at proper angles to the snakebite. That sounds easy, but it surely proved in any other case. For some cause, I anticipated the finger to be numb. It wasn’t, and the knife damage like blazes. I managed. to grit my tooth and lengthen the lower. All this was achieved whereas we had been standing there with the snake nonetheless pinned.

Once I wanted two palms, Harold took cost of the forked stick I didn’t need to decide up the snake, and my younger nephew had by no means dealt with stay rattlers, so earlier than issues acquired any worse I made a decision to kill the reptile within the common approach, by severing the spine shut the pinnacle. That was earlier than I began taking rattlers house alive, and we ordinarily killed them on the spot, not wanting to show them free.

Killing this one proved to be a really painful chore, as a result of the swelling had progressed to my thumb and throughout my hand to the wrist, and the ache and soreness had been extreme. I used to be additionally starting to really feel a wierd, numb, tingling feeling in my lips and tongue. We held a brief convention, and agreed on a begin for the closest hospital.

It was an excellent 4 miles again to the automotive. I spotted now that the chew was extra extreme than I’d thought. I wasn’t in any respect panicky, however I knew that males had died from the chew of a timberrattler earlier than they might stroll so far as we needed to go.

We began down the mountain at a gradual stroll. No matter occurred, I knew higher than to rush or exert myself. Once we acquired again to the spot the place we’d left the primary rattler within the bag, I killed it, once more as a result of I used to be reluctant to let it go, and that was pure torture. I needed to maintain the snake in my left hand and use the penknife with the swollen, half-helpless proper, and it was virtually greater than I may handle.

It took us an hour and a half to get to the automotive. By then, the swelling had reached my elbow. However my common situation didn’t appear a lot worse, and I may nonetheless stroll. Harold and I had found out that the Nesbitt Hospital in Kingston, throughout the Susquehanna from Wilkes-Barre, was the closest. He had no driver’s license and the Memorial Day visitors was very heavy, so I turned down his supply to drive. By that point, the fingers of my proper hand had been so puffy I couldn’t bend them, and the palm was swollen to twice its regular measurement. Shifting gears was pure homicide.

We lastly parked in entrance of the hospital, and after I tried to get out of the automotive, I spotted my toes had that numb feeling and my legs wouldn’t do what I needed them to. I took 10 or 12 staggering steps, regained some measure of management, and acquired to the nurse on the desk. “A rattlesnake bit me,” I mumbled.

She hurried me into the dispensary and referred to as a physician. I repeated my story, and he regarded on the lower. There have been no puncture marks. “You’re positive it was a rattlesnake?” he requested.

“It’s out within the automotive,” Harold stated rapidly. “We’ve acquired two of them. I’ll go carry them in.” The physician turned down that provide for proof in a rush. I used to be put to mattress and therapy began directly. The hospital had anti-venin readily available, and by chance the pores and skin check for horse-serum sensitivity proved adverse. One 10-cc vial was injected in 5 or 6 locations within the swollen arm.

The physician additionally made a cross incision on the web site of the chew.

I skilled no nausea or dizziness, however the ache was extreme. For the subsequent 12 days, I went by means of the standard snakebite sufferer’s ordeal.

A number of days after I used to be bitten, I developed what is called serum illness, a delayed response to the horse blood from which antivenin is ready. It could actually occur despite the fact that the preliminary pores and skin assessments are adverse.

My lymph glands grew to become swollen and sore, my total again broke out in blisters, and a collection of blisters appeared on my arm from the wrist virtually to the armpit. Subsequent, many small blisters popped up on my tongue, and I had very extreme ache in my arm and shoulder muscle groups. Lastly, my fingers and toes grew to become stiff and sore, as if I had arthritis.

These signs didn’t all happen directly, for which I’m grateful. Every time I figured I may go away the hospital, one thing else confirmed up. I can’t say how a lot of my struggling was attributable to rattler’s venom and the way a lot to serum illness, however I used to be a sick snake hunter for nearly two weeks. Launched 12 days after being admitted, I had misplaced a median of a pound a day. I had a really sore hand for weeks afterward, and my index finger nonetheless will get numb and chilly in climate a lot beneath 60°. It even bothers me after I’m searching and fishing on cool days. All this distress resulted from no more than a single drop of venom, if certainly it was that a lot, delivered by one fang, and in a lower, not a puncture.

It was a dreadful expertise, as snakebite virtually all the time is. When it was throughout, associates requested me whether or not I used to be prepared to surrender snake searching. Not by any means. I’m nonetheless at it, virtually to the exclusion of different out of doors actions besides when the snakes aren’t overseas, and I anticipate to be at it the remainder of my life. I gained’t drop my guard once more, nevertheless.

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There’s a peculiar pleasure about snake searching that’s laborious to explain. Regardless of what number of fish you may have caught or what number of deer you may have shot, the subsequent laborious strike you get or the subsequent massive buck you see nonetheless offers you a thrill. Each hunter and fisherman is aware of that, and its much more true once you’re searching toxic snakes, I suppose due to the hazard. Nearly each hunt consists of one thing the inexperienced would rely a detailed name.

Snake searching is a sport that prices subsequent to nothing, but it’s virtually equal to a tiger hunt. I’ve had a couple of spectator come near a nervous breakdown simply watching the proceedings. Give up snake searching? I ought to say not!