Has anyone else (besides me) every picked up a live rattlesnake by the tail before?

Kozmic and straightshooter2 have the right idea as far as I am concerned. NFW would I do what some others have described.
 
Never say never?

Eventually, victim fell unconscious, US Coast Guard launches and delivers Pygmy Rattle Snake Anti Venom via helicopter about 2 hours later. Victim spends the next 6 - 8 weeks in various stages of recovery. Another year or two for all the wounds to dry up, scar and heal.

End result, he lost his index finger and part of the web between the index finger and thumb. The left side of his tongue has several pieces that needed to be removed (never suck on a rattlesnake bite). All in all, he's lucky to be alive.

..

I would suck on a rattlesnake bite, if I had no snake bite kit.

If he had not been sucking and spitting he might have died. You and I don't know and unfortunately neither does anyone else. (Everyone should read and make up their own mind)

I usually carry a snake bite kit when hiking or camping in rattlesnake country. It has been used on several bee stings. (It has paid for itself)
 
If you get bit on the butt you will soon find out who your friends are.
 
Think Lymph

If you get bit on the butt you will soon find out who your friends are.

If I was hiking in the mountains, and got bit by a rattlesnake anywhere my own mouth could not reach, my friends would race down to the trailhead to find a bar with a phone, to call me a helicopter and drink a beer to my happy existence.

After I heated up my metal canteen, stuck it on the bite, and squatted down in cold lake or stream, to cool and cause suction, I would eventually end up right beside them at the bar drinking their pitcher of beer and talking bad about them.

Then I would tell them more about the lymphatic system than they want to hear. How all lymph fluids drains from all areas by muscle contraction. (The heart pumps blood, there is no equivalent to the heart for the lymph fluids, only muscle motion).

Long ago I read that tourniquets caused loss of limb by blocking blood and lymph flow. Translated I believe that indicates they believed much of the poison was in between blood veins and capillaries. Not instantly in the blood veins the way so many have indicated in the past.

It is a long subject and the last words have not yet been written.

Treating Snake Bites
(Eight paragraphs down).
NOTE: The purpose of constricting bands is to restrict lymphatic flow, not blood, so they should not be too tight. Check pulses below the bands and readjust the bands as necessary when they tighten due to swelling.
 
Good question.
Not sober or that I can remember.
Now----the alter call is a serious subject. I been as far as getting baptized--but never felt the need to prove anything.
Blessings
 
No but I almost wizzed on one on a camping trip once.
Backpacked in, spent the night, got up the next morning and walked to the woods to relieve myself. I was about to start my stream when I heard a rustling sound in the leaves. "Hey a snake," then I both heard and saw the rattle at about the same time. I slowly backed away and chose another spot to relieve myself.
 
When I was a guard on graveyard one dark night I was manning a gate, couldnt get a relief. No headlights in sight so I walked about 20 yards up the unlit fence line and relieved myself. My dayshift relief pointed towards the same place and said they killed a rattler yesterday and threw it over there. I walked over and it was a bullseye where I had done my thing!
 
We had a civilian uprange with us at WSMR who thought he was quick. He ignored instructions not to mess with the critters but no way. He had to prove a point and he did. He tried and he lost. He got bit. By the time the medics arrived by helo his whole arm had turned into a huge ballon. We never heard from him again. When the say don't mess with the critters don't mess with them. Another fine example of Ron Whites insight into human nature when he said "you can't fix stupid".
 
No.... but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

[Seriously, I did almost step barefoot on a copperhead in my garage a few years ago.]
 
No sir I don't pick them up, I don't spit or any other bodily funtion into the wind, and I wouldn't pull on Supermans cape. A buddy wanted me to go to the Rattlesnake round up years ago..My answer to that invite would be banned here......
 
I get what your saying.... Sucking on his finger nearly fatally closed his airway. Suction is good, but not with your mouth. He recovered, but even Bill Haast advised against using your mouth to draw out the venom. But, hell do what you got to do to survive.
 
Mouthwash?

Most of our medicines are watered down poisons that we can tolerate better than the germs can tolerate.

If they would study rattlesnake poison a little closer they might find the perfect mouthwash, with a slight chemical change.

Many experiments with bee stings and such have been tried for arthritis. Hard to imagine rattlesnake poison not being good for something.
 
Never picked up a live one. But I also don't use .357 or .38 on them. I find my K 22 works wonders. We have many in Southwest Idaho. Always carry the K 22 for such encounters. Usually leave them in an open area for the birds of prey to enjoy. I tried it once, not to my taste. Have a few twelve and thirteen pod rattles in my junk drawer. I only keep the oldest ones. They don't usually get much bigger then that along the Snake River here. Gotta love our Falcon population. Keeps the rabbits down too.
If I had one of those snake grabber tools, I might pick up a live one by the head. Then what am I gonna do with it? K-22. :) Have fun, keep your hands, legs and other body parts on the grip side of your weapon of choice.
 
In the late fifties my friend and I (ages 15 or so) were walking down a dirt road in Carmel Valley, Kalifornia. We were going shooting; he had a 22 revolver and I had a trapdoor Springfield Model 1884. A rattler was in the middle of the road and coiled up right away. My pal made a quick draw and emptied his High Standard Sentinel into the snake. The head was not hit, and the 22s seemed to have no effect. The 45-70 sent the head one way and the body the other...Always regretted not taking the remains for a belt or something. We continued on down the road to our shooting spot; when we came back both pieces had been grabbed by something or other...
 
I can say I have never picked up a live rattlesnake or a dead snake for that matter. When I see a snake, any kind of snake it's all I can do not to panic. I have an agreement with snakes you stay away from me and I stay away from you. The biggest fear had while stationed at Vandenberg AFB in California. I would be out riding my dirt bike in the high desert and be going like a bat out of heck and dump the bike into a den of rattlers.
 
Several years ago the Ex-Chief Patrol Agent of Havre Sector (retired the year this happened) was hunting the opening day of bird season and tried to pick one up, he got bit, and died. I always thought it was a terribly ignoble way to die, and I never understood why in the heck anyone would try to pick up a live rattler? Me, I'll leave them alone if they leave me alone, otherwise they're getting shot, repeatedly.
 
We usually prefer to kill them first. Here is Charlie and I with a recently terminated snake. Charlie is holding the snake.

snake3%20resize.jpg
 

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