I spent most of the morning at my tasks and was soaked with sweat as the temperature had now climbed into the high 90s. On my way back to my bike while walking on a two track road I was startled by a huge rattlesnake which crawled out of the high grass between the two tracks into the clearing of the track on my left. I stopped and picked up a stick and threw it at the snake. It didn't crawl away-instead it came right for me. Now maybe that was a coincidence and maybe it wasn't. I threw another stick and the snake came for me at a fast pace. I ran back the way I had come for 10-15 yards to get away from the now angry snake. I stopped and turned to look at the snake which was no more than 20 feet from me. I felt something stinging me all over my body. I looked down and was covered in yellow jackets-I had stepped in their nest and was still there. I ran backwards again and knocked the yellow jackets away as best I could as I ran. I was now in major pain from what was later counted to be 32 stings.

I walked down into the woods and around the snake and came back into the road on the other side of it. Since I knew I would be hunting this area during bow season in warm weather I didn't relish the idea of running into the big snake again. I first took a big rock and dropped in on the snake partly smashing its head and then cut a forked limb using my brush loppers and pinned the snake to the ground. Using the brush loppers I cut off the snakes head. It was a big as my forearm which isn't small and about 6+ feet long. The head was a full 2" wide. Now all I had to do was walk almost a mile to my bike in high 90s weather with 32 yellow jacket stings-ride 2 miles to my truck and another 25 miles to my house. I made it but was in pretty bad shape from the effect of the stings when I got there. It took me a couple of weeks to fully recover from the experience.

Later that year after archery deer season started I was hunting at the end of Rd. 529 down the big hollow near the tree that would soon become known as the "Nine Pine". I had walked maybe 1/4 mile further down the hollow from where I turn to go to the "Nine Pine" near a large rock formation. I spent the morning there without seeing a deer. The temperature had climbed into the high 80s and I had enough for the day. On my way back down my trail I became aware of a presence besides mine in the trail. Just before I stepped on it I saw another large rattlesnake. This one was coiled behind a rock right in my trail and just waiting for an unsuspecting victim to come along. One step away from putting my foot on it was all I had when I saw it. Using my limb saw I cut another forked limb and used it to pin the snakes head to the ground and cut it off with my saw. This one was over 4' long and about 1-1/2" in diameter-much smaller than the previous rattlesnake encountered not more than a mile away.

I survived both close encounters of the rattlesnake kind that year and have not had another close encounter of that type since. I have however had others in previous times-but that is a subject for another story.

GB