Just for Jeff

[Radar67]

Jeff, I've been looking for this for a couple of months now, thought you would enjoy some of the "problems" we have to deal with down here in the south.



If you can't read it, it says,"YES, IT WAS 150 POUNDS. This hugh rattlesnake was found at Camp Shelby, Mississippi in 1953. The 150 pounder had 60 rattles. Kendal Butler's editorial 'The Shelby Experience' published in last Wednesday's Advocate mentioned this Tennessee National Guard Camp legend and we felt it was only fair to share this photographic proof with our interested readers. (Photo compliments of Gene Gibson)"

You ready to come down and visit yet?  :D :D

Stew

[Jeff]

Thats a good snake.

[Dave Shepard]

Somehow, I knew it was going to be a snake. :D Yeah, Jeff, because its dead, that's how I like'em too.


Dave

[Radar67]

It's a good one in the picture, but could you imagine the person who walked up on it?


Stew

[fencerowphil (Phil L.)]

Stew,

How big is that fella holdin' the snake?

Phil L.

[Radar67]

I don't know for sure Phil, but I would figure he is at least 5 foot tall, probably closer to 6 foot.

Stew

[Texas Ranger]

And the guy is holding 150 pounds on the end of an extended stick?  Naw.  Camera trick.

[Bibbyman]

Speaking of snakes,  just this very day there was some excitement behind me.  Mary pulled me over to the edger to look at baby copperhead parts that had fallen out of the edger sawdust.  What there was of it was about 6" long with no head.  Gabe went and looked in a knot hole on the face just cut and dug out about an inch with the head on it.

I wonder what she'd do if she came up on a 150 pounder?   

[Radar67]

end of an extended stick?

It's hard to see in the photocopy of the picture, but he ain't got no stick, he is using both hands to hold it up. 

Stew

[Dave Shepard]

I don't think its being dead would make me get any closer to it, I don't like snakes!


Dave

[Radar67]

I'm with you Dave, the further away I am, the better.

Stew

[Engineer]

That there's good eatin'.

[sawguy21]

Oh sure, bring a snake thread around to food. :D :D

[Tom]

Tastes like chicken  ....necks

[SwampDonkey]

Even the sight of river eels made grandfather's skin crawl. :D :D

[Don K]

Guy looks plenty big enough to hold up a little ol snake to me. Those arms look like they have chunked a stick of paperwood or two.

Don

[Dave Shepard]

I had a guy helping my an a chipping job that grew up in Quebec cutting pulpwood. He would come strolling out of the woods with a large tree in one hand and stuff it in the chipper like it was a toothpick. He complained it was too hot out, it was up to -10°F at noon. :


Dave

[Texas Ranger]

I don't want to sound racist, but, black folk around here do not pick up snakes in their hands.  White folk don't either.  There was a shot just like this one, in color, about a snake killed near Dallas, it was on the end of a stick, and looked just like this one.  Photography is wonderfully adaptive.

[Radar67]

TR, I found two references to large rattlesnakes listed on snopes.com. The first references a snake from W. VA

1st snake

The second references a snake in TX

2nd snake

I received the photocopy of the picture I posted about 7 years ago, personally handed to me by an old timer working at Camp Shelby. Supposedly, it was copied from an old newspaper.

I wasn't even born in 1953, so I can't say if it is real or not. I can say that I have never seen this photo in any email I have ever received. I am going to check the sources listed in the caption under the picture to see what I can find.

Stew

[Radar67]

Jeff, is this what you call a bad snake? WDH stepped right over this one before we saw it move.




Stew

[WDH]

In another post I said that Radar67 ( ) and I were a good team.........He looked at the ground for snakes while I looked up at the trees :.  They don't call him Radar for nothing :D.

[Dave Shepard]

I guess I wouldn't make a very good forester in snake country. :D I would have a pretty good feel for how the understory was doing though. ;D


Dave

[Radar67]

Dave, you do know snakes can climb trees don't you? 

Stew

[Dave Shepard]

Yeah, I forgot about that. Maybe I need bifocals, one eye pointed up, the other down. : :D


Dave

[pineywoods]

Yeah, they can climb trees, but they generally don't climb back down, just turn loose and fall. If you happen to be in a boat, they have a nasty habit of falling into the boat with you. Don't ask how I know ;D

[Dave Shepard]

I'll have to add "bullet proof boat" to my list of item for a southern adventure. ;D


Dave

[Radar67]

Naw, boat don't need to be bullet proof, but you do need a good quantity of chewing gum....  :D :D :D

Stew

[Texas Ranger]

I know I told this story before, but I enjoy it, so here goes.

I learned to cuss in about a 2 minute session with my dad, fishing, on a river near home in Missouri.  We were on the Merrimac in Franklyn County, fishing from a 10 foot aluminum boat, no motor, just oars, dad on one end, me on the other (maybe 10 years old).

We were on a part of the river with a lime stone bluff that dropped off into fairly deep water, and we had learned over the years that you drop bait down the side of the bluff, and you could catch fish.  There is brush and trees growing over the water, rooted in the bluff. 

We are fishing away when a cotton mouth drops into the center of the boat.  There began my 2 minute session of instruction in profanity, all the words that I still know, and the invention of the live well.  By the time dad had finished with the paddle there was a live well in the center of the boat, with snake all over it, and a few popped rivets to let the water in.

I loved fishing with the man, and can never put a hook in the water without thinking of one of those crusty old men that made my generation, and left to soon.

[Texas Ranger]

 

Same kind of shot, found at http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/txsnake.asp#photo

[Lanier_Lurker]

I have seen the picture at the beginning of this thread several times through the years.  However, I have never seen the caption or the background story.

No doubt this is an exceptionally large snake.  It looks to be well over 7 feet in length (perhaps even approaching 8 feet), which is not an impossible size for an eastern diamondback.

However, I strongly doubt that the critter weighed 150 pounds.  I have heard a weight of over 90 pounds attributed to the snake in this picture, but I think that is doubtful as well.

[tcsmpsi]

The size of the snake is not unreasonable.  I've had to stop the vehicle and let a couple that size or maybe a bit larger cross the road down in the Big Bend area.  They are protected, with prejudice, in the park.  No idea how much one of them might have weighed. 

One thing is certain.  Were I to personally find out, it would certainly be 'dead weight'.  :D

[Dave Shepard]

I am no great judge of snake weights, but when I think of how big a 150 pound rottwieller is, I tend to think that snake might not weigh that much. The guy holding the snake looks like a pretty rugged fella, but holding 150 pounds out like that would certainly be quite a feat.


Dave

[Radar67]

Dave, I have to disagree about a man holding 150 pounds like that. With elbows tucked and locked, it is possible to hold that much weight. If you look close at the image, the tail of the snake is resting on the man's left boot, which indicates that the snake is not that far from the man's body. With two hands holding the snake. Does the snake weigh 150 pounds? I couldn't say, wasn't there. 

Some may think it impossible to hold that kind of weight. During the 50s, many men from the south hauled pulp wood, before any loaders or winches were used. (At least in MS anyways, people were too poor to afford that kind of equipment) The average stick was 6 foot long and 6 to 12 inches in diameter. They loaded them all day long by hand. That's back when a hard days work was common or you didn't eat. With today's technology, many people don't know what it is to have to truly work for a living. (This is not directed toward anyone in particular, it is merely an observation about the population in general)

I have loaded 5 foot, 10 inch diameter loblolly pine myself. The toolbox calculator estimates the weight at 144 pounds. I've also been guilty of carrying two M2 50 caliber machine guns in my younger days while stationed in Germany. They only weigh 84 pounds each. ;)

Thinking about that 150 pound rottwieller, could you pick him up? I also agree with tcsmpsi, the only way I'm finding out how much a snake weighs is if it is dead!! Otherwise, it weighs zero pounds.  ;D And, I'm not likely to weigh a dead one either.  :D

An update on my research, I have a lead on the photographer. I've been informed that he is still alive and still living in MS, may have a phone number on him in a few days. The newspaper that printed this article is no longer in business. It may be possible to get micro-fish copy of the article if I can get the library here to do and inter network library loan.

Stew

[Dave Shepard]

As I said, I am no judge of snake weights. ;D I think someone needs to get a rattlesnake, weigh it, calculate the weight per cubic inch, and then try to calculate the volume of the snake in the picture....ah to heck with it, it's just a DanG big snake. :D :D ;D


Dave

[beenthere]

I don't think a snake would be more dense than a solid piece of wood. Regardless of someone strong enough to hold that weight on a stick, I really don't think it weighs more than 20-30 pounds.

Record 8' rattlers are in the 20 pound range, and the eastern rattler about the same.

But each can believe what they want to believe... ;D ;D

[Dave Shepard]

That one looks like a 20' rattler stuffed into an 8' package to me. ;D Anybody missing a hog?


Dave

[Lanier_Lurker]

I don't think a snake would be more dense than a solid piece of wood. Regardless of someone strong enough to hold that weight on a stick, I really don't think it weighs more than 20-30 pounds.

Record 8' rattlers are in the 20 pound range, and the eastern rattler about the same.

But each can believe what they want to believe... ;D ;D

I agree.  20 to 25 pounds would be my guess for a record size (over 7 feet) eastern diamondback.  I have handled (live!) eastern diamondbacks in the 4 to 6 foot range - and the weight difference between a 4 footer and a 6 footer is *significant*.  I read somewhere that with eastern diamondbacks (and probably most North American pit vipers), once they reach 2 feet or so in length, for every additional foot in length - their weight approximately doubles.  They are very thick bodied.

[dail_h]

   As to the weight of the snake,I ain't got a clue,as to a guy holding that kind of weight. I've seen Buck,a local black man who cut pulpwood all his adult life stand with one bare foot on the spot where the wooden standard fit in the old starter housing welded on the truck frame. hold the top of the standard with one hand,hold a Homelite 55 or 66 with a bow blade in the other,and trim limbs for the truck to back in to load.
   FYI,BOYS CAN NOT DO THIS

[Sawmill_Bill]

Lets assume that a rattle snake has the same density as water.  And take that snake as a cylinder of 6" in diameter.  At 8 feet long, that is 2715.4 cubic inches of snake and or water.  Now a cubic inch of H2O weighs 0.036127 pounds. 2715.4 x 0.036127 = 98.1 pounds.  I cannot believe that it could weigh more than that.