I Nearly Messed My Pants

[Condor]

I got out for a couple hrs yesterday with forum member Beatup's brother.  It's summer in Sunny Yuma, approaching 100 degrees around 9:00am so we started right at sunup.  We were 30 minutes into a desert wash that had produced good gold for him this past winter.  We split up at the first junction of washes I went left, he went right.  I had taken about 10 steps and froze mid-stride as an 18" DiamondBack rattler slithered through my legs from behind me.  He paid me no mind, and gathered himself up under a jumble of rocks 10 ft away.  He never rattled, hissed or made any aggressive motion, early morning temps around 70 degrees.  All I can figure is he was under a small boulder and as I passed he decided we were heading in the same direction, the gravel wash being his own territory.  The fact that he was decidedly moving on his way and didn't stop and rattle probably saved me a pair of underwear.   As dear old Fred Mason would say, "don't kill them, you're the trespasser" and I rarely do.  I have snake chaps, but generally have excuses not to wear them, oh well.  

The good news, I found a 1.5 gram piece and brother of Beatup found a whopping 5 grammer.  As old Sgt Esterhaus on Hill Street Blues used to say "remember, let's be careful out there".  

[Steve Herschbach]

Yikes! 

[vanursepaul]

It’s a jungle

[Tom Slick]

I've been closer than I wanted to be to quite a few rattle snakes that never rattled. The're probably a new type that should be called non-rattle snakes or rattleless snakes. It would be kinda nice if they would all just rattle to let us know they're there. Encounters like your's usually result in folks wearing their snake gators more often. Glad everything worked out OK for you. I was out for a couple hours this morning hunting an old wagon road outside Phoenix. Just a couple of relics, one with a Pat. Date Nov. 17, 1883. Would rather have dug a couple of nuggets. 🙂 

[Condor]

53 minutes ago, Tom Slick said:

I've been closer than I wanted to be to quite a few rattle snakes that never rattled. The're probably a new type that should be called non-rattle snakes or rattleless snakes. It would be kinda nice if they would all just rattle to let us know they're there. Encounters like your's usually result in folks wearing their snake gators more often. Glad everything worked out OK for you. I was out for a couple hours this morning hunting an old wagon road outside Phoenix. Just a couple of relics, one with a Pat. Date Nov. 17, 1883. Would rather have dug a couple of nuggets. 🙂 

There's one of those "Darwinian Theories" out there that suggests the noisy ones are more likely to get themselves killed by our less enlightened brothers and sisters with firearms.  In my misspent youth I was a cop in Lake Havasu City for a very short time.  We got dozens of calls each spring for rattlesnakes in yards and pools.  The policy was to shoot them with a .38 snake load.  I got disciplined for being reckless and killing them with my nightstick.  As Burt Lancaster said in the movie Valdez, "that was before I know better".  

[beatup]

I like it Steve

[vanursepaul]

My lazy a.. watch snake must have been drinking again--- stay off my patch you two!!!  lololol

 

[Condor]

1 hour ago, vanursepaul said:

My lazy a.. watch snake must have been drinking again--- stay off my patch you two!!!  lololol

 

Well, he did find your lost Toyota keys nearby.  Presumably, some of those nuggets were the ones that fell out of your pocket with the car keys.  People who know Paul would find it inconceivable that he could lose a set of car keys mere weeks after he let the local miscreants steal that same vehicle and our detectors.  A curious coincidence indeed.  Could be a conspiracy to defame Paul.

[Jim McCulloch]

Buzztails are no joke. Here in Yucca Valley are a fair number of hobby gardeners who lack fingers or thumbs as a result of picking a tomato from a bush occupied by a rattlesnake. 

[vanursepaul]

1 hour ago, Condor said:

Well, he did find your lost Toyota keys nearby.  Presumably, some of those nuggets were the ones that fell out of your pocket with the car keys.  People who know Paul would find it inconceivable that he could lose a set of car keys mere weeks after he let the local miscreants steal that same vehicle and our detectors.  A curious coincidence indeed.  Could be a conspiracy to defame Paul.

Finally the explanation of my woes