Hiking in coastal NC

[84CJ]

This was received in an e mail

The next time you think about hiking in coastal NC, keep this in mind! I think this guy is grinning because he's happy to be alive!

This was found 20 miles north of Wilmington, N.C.
9'-1" long and 97 pounds.

 

[84CJ]

This was received in an e mail

The next time you think about hiking in coastal NC, keep this in mind! I think this guy is grinning because he's happy to be alive!

This was found 20 miles north of Wilmington, N.C.
9'-1" long and 97 pounds.

 

[jkc]

This image stays in constant circulation. The stats are bogus, and I think the locale as well --- that looks like a Western Diamondback to me, not found in SC so far as I know, and never anywhere near that long or heavy...

 

[yashua-p]

...first time that I have seen it. That is a serious snake where ever it is from.

yashua

 

[truckemup97]

Wherever they come from, they taste like chicken.

 

[MK]

I was given that in an e-mail at least
3-4 years ago. I was told that was in the
Texas Panhandle area, near Amarillo, Midland/
Odessa or thereabouts..
I forgot exactly what they told me.
I dunno.. The area does match the flat terrain
of the Panhandle area, and they fer sure have
those snakes there.
Wherever it was, that's a mean lookin snake..
Here is another one that was found last year
by a survey crew in the Texas hill country
area.

 

[VAdoublegunner]

I don't know about the authenticity of the photo, but I have seen a few very large eastern diamondbacks in the area around Southport, NC and Oak Island in years past. I remember as a kid going to a favorite spot we called the Varmint Hole (clue!) to cast net for minnows. As I went over the small rise down to the creek, there, stretched across the path, was old Crotalus adamanteus sunning and apparently eating menhaden minnows left on the beach. He was at least 7ft long as later measured and enormously fat. No flounder was was worth that! They are very pretty snakes, in a terrifying way. I've seen several others since but would just as soon stay away from them. Although seldom encountered (they are believed to be all but gone in NC), Easterns have a nasty reputation.

 

[deralte]

Back in the late 80s when I was attending the local community college they killed a rattler that was about 6/7 feet long and it was in the local paper. The unnerving part of it was they killed it just off the walkway we used to go to our classroom.

 

[ladder13]

I can deal with snakes, but palmetto's

 

[jkc]

Part of the drama of the OP pic is that it's extremely exaggerated in its perspective --- the snake is being held by a device called a Pilstrom tong, a tool for handling dangerous reptiles, typically about four feet long. Thrust toward the camera as it is, with the man in the background for scale reference, the snake in the foreground appears much larger than it actually is. For photographer-fishermen and other inveterate liars, try this cheap-trick-photography: with monofilament or other fine line, suspend a fish or other specimen from a tree branch or etc. at about breast height. Pose human subject well behind suspended fish/subject, slightly offside, and with arm outstretched so as to appear to be grasping suspended subject --- jockey human as necessary to achieve plausible alignment. Use max depth of field to bring both near (fish) and far (human) into focus. This cheap trick will make a yellow perch look like a yellowfin tuna! Amaze your friends and intimidate your enemies!