Another belt!
 

Another belt

Nice work!

12 gauge is my friend. 4 feet 15 rattles.

Wow.

While at camp one summer, as a child, a buddy killed a Garter snake...skinned it and tied it around his jeans as a belt. Didn't have anything to cure it with and by the end of the two week camp he had to toss is...the stench was awful.

So are you cooking any of these critters? Snake meat is not bad.

Especially if you like ribs :D


So the one big rattle snake (5' eastern diamondback) I've seen in the wild (we have a couple of 8 footers in our zoo) lost an argument with a 9mm 124grn FMJ load.

Nailed to a tree, skinned it, chopped it into 8-9" lengths, soaked in saltwater, put on BBQ grill.

Run a fork between all the ribs for a few mouthfuls of meat. Along the spine - both interior and anterior - you'll get a nice thick strip of meat all the way down. And that is about it. Figure on one 5' snake for 3 folks to eat off, plus side dishes.

White meat, so tastes like chicken. But has the texture of steak. Good stuff.

I loathe/hate snakes, I can't stand to touch them. After a few beers, I'll skin, tan and make a belt for my Son-in-Law.

I walked out to my car and there it was. I used to use a shovel until I realized that to kill a 4' rattler I had to get within its strike zone and it has WAY faster reflexes than me. 12 gauge is the tool of choice. My 1-1/2 and 3-12 grandsons were about 30 feet away.

No, I'll toss it in the wash. I hate snakes and I'm certainly not going to eat one.

I killed one in my house once about 10 years ago. The now deceased MIL left her door open for her rat dog. I was coming in from the hot tub and actually kicked it in the dark I heard the rattle and was a little, OK a lot drunk, I ended up grinding it's head off with a shovel on my new hardwood floors. So I was finishing off a big a$$ rattler more or less naked in by bathrobe, but I had the sense of mind to put my cowboy boots on.

^^^ That's a nice FAT one. :( God awful animals. Never liked them.

Wow! Nice sized snake. I hear there are lots out and around now. We have a Facebook site for our area, which my wife always checks & participates on and people have commented about them on it. We live in a pretty rural area and in eight years, I've only seen five rattlers around here. One was as big as my fore arm and four plus feet long (beautiful pacific red), one medium sized dark colored one, and the rest were about the size of my little finger and a foot long at most. One was in the process of dying. My neighbor across the road killed a medium sized one last year. Seems like you have more than your share, so keep eyes open.

Hugh, drunk and naked except for cowboy boots, thanks for that mental picture.

The only thing that could complete that picture is for him to be twirling it around his head like a lasso yelling out "YAHOOOOO.!"

MS Hugh R says it was not a pretty picture. But I got the rattler and a belt out of the deal. SmileWavy

That instant when you recognize a snake just scares the GD piss out of me.

I eat them even though I hate them too. Usually toss them in gumbo when cooking for guests - good conversation starter!

I don't miss being outdoors in LA. My dog was bit a few years ago in the Angeles National Forest (even being snake avoidance trained ...) It was ugly, don't take rattlers lighthearted. They will mess you up big time. Easy to lose a limb or die if far from help. Good news is that they generally try to avoid you. Mostly adolescent guys that get bit because they mess with them.

I almost stepped on one up here in NorCal deep in the wilderness out hunting. Shudder to think what would have happened to me ...

G

When a man has too many belts...suspenders :)!

I'm right there with Jim Stafford on this topic...

Hugh da man!!!

Two guys out hunting

One gets bit by a rattler. Gets him right in the dick!

He falls and gets his leg pinned under a log
They discuss and since they know that with a snakebite time is your enemy, they decide he'll try the free himself while his friend goes for help.

Friend arrives at the doctors for advice

Doc says that he will probably be dead by the time they get him back out of the woods so there is only one way to save your friends life

Doc says "Your going to have to suck the poison out"

The friend rushes back to the forest and locates the guy with the snake bite
The guy asks "what did the doc say?"

The friend says "Doc says your gonna die."

Reminds of the story of the Cowboy who was bitten while pissing. His buddy rides into town to get the doctor, who is too busy with other patients to ride out. But the doctor describes what he has to do. Make a cut in line with the bite, then cross cut each bite and then suck the venom out.

He rides back to his friend and simply tells him: "Doc says you're gonna die..."

Edit: Oh Well Wayner beat me too it

it sucks.but a four foot belt isnt gonna wrap around me.

i would eat that thing.

I've told this before, but it's the only way I've eaten rattle snake. I was working in the mountains and drove up & down the hill a couple of times a week. There was a bar & small hotel at the end of one of the hair pin turns in the road. The bar tender was a retired boxer names Sully. The ranchers in the area would kill rattlers and freeze them. After they got a few, they'd bring them to Sully. He would cook them up and make a meat salad like tuna or chicken salad out of them. He'd put it in a big party bowl with different kinds of crackers around the base and customers would eat it for free. It was really good.

Nice work. Good eating, but I hate those damn things.

I haven't had snake, but my wife says it is pretty good. The meat salad sounds pretty good actually.

I don't care what your wife says, I ain't eatin your meat salad. Doc still says YOU'RE GONNA DIE. ;)

hahahha..one of the all time classic best jokes. well played.

Skinned and tanned. 44/45 inches. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1494037874.jpg

For those of you who may not have seen the original thread on this subject click here:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/480552-making-rattlesnake-belt-warning-potential-gagging-photos.html

Hugh - I was considering buying your house.....NOT NOW......

Just needs Notfarnow's marketing skilz....

FREE RATTLERS!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1494105699.jpg

Biggest sucker I've dispatched. 15 Rattles. You don't have to be too brave with a 12 gauge six feet away. Took a divet out of my asphalt.

I found a baby Copperhead in my pool skimmer last week. He was still swimming....

Wait, what? All of that mountain hiking and hunting and stuff, how could you need a belt longer than 48"? What are you the Asian Paul Bunyon? Are you getting your inches and centimeters confused? I've always pictured you as looking more like a less ripped, more jovial Bruce Lee.

Does the number of rattles have any correlation to the age of the snake ?

I'm a neighbor (live near COC)
Daughter lives in Agua Dulce, and had a four foot rattler slithering past her back slider door last week.
Had a garter snake pop up onto her windshield while driving, the week prior. The County FD guys had never seen one in an engine bay. We all had a good laugh - not so if it was a rattler.

I like the belt idea, it looks incredible.

Maybe he wants to use it as a hatband?

Sorry Cliff...too easy :)

I was wondering about the number of rattles too...

Yes, age adds rattles. Each time they shed an additional rattle is added but some are lost due to attrition.

What Joe Bob said, and depending how hot/cold it gets during a year, they can shed more than once/year. So 15 rattles is around 14/15 years or so.

WOW Hugh! I get a lot of rattlesnakes on my property too, but I have never seen one with even close to that many rattles. That is a nice snake. It would keep a lot of rats out of my avocado orchard ;)

Not hard to do, once you get over the gag factor of skinning it.