Another SNAKE story

We get a lot of copper heads around here, but havn't seen a rattler since leaving NM. Now like Brent i lived in the middle of the desert at that time. Well the biggest and the smallest i very got, i got with in 5 mins. As you can see from the pics the biggest was well over 13 bottoms, and the smallest was just 3. Most of them were about 3 ft and had 7 or so bottons. Now that big one was over 6 ft long, and he wasn't scared of me in the least.When i skined him he covered a 4x8 sheet of plywood.

I did skin one once, and it was a challenge for me. I had his skin mounted in the garage, but unfortunately, some rodents took their revenge on it.

I do save the rattles. I don't have one as big as Stephens, and I'm very happy for that. The 4' gopher snake I've learned to tolerate is a big enough challenge for me.

But I do have a nice collection of rattles. I actually think I forgot to keep them from one of the buggers I got this year.

One of the problems I have with skinning them is that with my method of 'preperation', generally the head disappears, and a couple of chunks of torso as well, since they generally coil up so tight. I don't really have the patience to try and just erase the head...