Northwest Fishing Reports

A friend of my wife had a friend doing some hiking in the Mt Clemens area (naches, wa), about fifteen miles from my house, and came upon the following scene. Kind of scary actually. I've been fortunate, throughout all my fishing travels, I have come across snakes, but no rattlers! Crossing my fingers.

Wow! That's alot of snakes. It would suck to trip and fall into something like that. Watch your step! :shaking:

jeez!!!!!! the first time i looked here the pictures did not come up and i did not know what you were talking about but now i understand. that is scary!!!! i did not know they were social animals.

I know I should talk myself up like I'm a tough guy but I hate snakes. I'm always watching out when I'm on the eastside. I had a few run ins when I was young.....They make me wanna piss myself,yet they are facsinating creatures

That's just a clusterf**k of snakes right there....$20 for anyone who steps in that pile of em!

Sam Kafelafish wrote:That's just a clusterf**k of snakes right there....$20 for anyone who steps in that pile of em!

I'm glad I wan't up there with those people, I would have had to run home and changed my underwear... The fact that it was even fifteen miles from home is definately going to make me a lot more cautious next time I'm walking through the brush.

Bill says that they are mating when they are gathered like that. He says they probably wouldn't bite unless you really messed with them since they had their minds on something else.
Rosann

Rosann G wrote:Bill says that they are mating when they are gathered like that. He says they probably wouldn't bite unless you really messed with them since they had their minds on something else.
Rosann

Either way,I still pee my pants.

Those are awesome pictures. I've seen 3 in the wild, all of them in Nevada.

I have read that they "den up". That is a good picture of that. I understand that they will move up to 20 miles from their den and then return in the fall. I'd mark that spot on the GPS:shaking:

mating or denning, with this less than warm spring we have had so far it is completely possible that they have not moved out of their lazy winter/hibernation mode (though if i remember right they don't actually hibernate). I would not be to concerned about them myself but I would also have been trying to walk in amongst them to get better pictures...(I am kind of a crazy guy with a biology degree with an emphasis in vertebrate ecology). Great pics though just wish I was there. I have only seen 2 rattlers in Washington since I moved here. Used to see them in California all the time when I was younger though. I did see a large garter snake sunning itself in the middle of the cedar river trail a few weekends ago. That was fun to pick it up and move it out of the way of all the bikers.

anyway Great Pics!

Holly Crap. Im not afraid of snakes but my scariest dreams look just like those pictures, only more of them though. I guess its best if I just stay on the west side of the mountains then....

Looks like dinner!

My wife grew up on a farm in the Wenas Valley and she said when she was young it was not uncommon to find clusters of rattlers in the hills behind their house. She looked at the pictures and said that was a small bunch.
She also said that Bull snakes are good because they will kill rattlers and keep them out of the yard.
Her Dad told me when they cut hay if you didn't kill 10-12 of them a day it was a slow day.
When we go to visit her Dad in the summer I am nervous the whole time I'm over there.
She also said I don't need to pack the .44 for snakes:-"

My uncles owned a huge cattle ranch on the Columbia near Keller when I was a kid and they had mason jars full of rattles all over the place from all the snakes they killed. My one uncle (not the quickest one) would not even use the snake bite kit because he had been bitten so many times he had built up an immunity to the venom and would get a little sick for a day or so when he got bit. I also lived in Grand Coulee when I was in first grade and remember my dad going on rattlesnake roundups where they would go through a field and just kill tons of snakes...

Frankly rattlesnakes scare me more than Democrats...

when people kill snakes just because it kind of makes me mad. kind of like people just killing and leaving fish. if you eat them thats fine but when people just want the rattles or just leave it there it makes me kind of angry.

crankbait42 wrote:when people kill snakes just because it kind of makes me mad. kind of like people just killing and leaving fish. if you eat them thats fine but when people just want the rattles or just leave it there it makes me kind of angry.

If it comes to a choice between a family member or the snake the snakes gonna lose everytime

yeah. i understand if it is around a house were they can hurt someone. but sometimes people do it to harmless snakes like garters just because they are scared of it or think its creepy. im not trying to put snakes before people.

Anytime I fish in the Eastern side of Wa. I take a 22 cal revolver.From Umptanum to Coulee is snake country.I also walk with a ski pole or a long stick just in case.Rather have a stick bitten then my leg.Always wear leather shoes or boots on Eastside no matter how hot it gets.Also I carry snake bite kit and a eppy pen for bees and wasps.By the way if I shoot a snake I'll eat it.I dont like killing them for nothing either.

Growing up in the southwest I can tell you rattle snake is very tasty. I also didn't know that we have a large population of snakes in the northwest, when I have been out about I have not seen that many.