"Remember when I was "Sentenced to Austin"? Opened the cabinet, and there he was. Walked back to the truck for the S/A M6 and there was another one OTW to the truck. I got FOUR at the one site alone. I hate the Killeen/Temple area!"

Were there any snakes there?

I need to ask, in the original image are you looking down onto the bitten worm vertically or back at it horizontally, I'm confused by the perspective ?

Oh Yes!

We used to go to a radio repeater site in Washington called Chandler butte, out near Prosser. A couple hundred yards or so from the shack was a broke down ditch full of boulders. In one spot the boulders had bridged, leaving a pit-like area underneath. We reckon all the Pacific rattlers in the area must migrate there in the winter to hibernate, and again to mate. Anyways, Pacific rattlers are pretty mild mannered compared to other types of pit vipers, so they were relativerly easy to harvest into a burlap sack. We brought the sackfull back to the main shop and told the others. When they didn't believe us, we brought the sack in and sat it in the middle of the main room. My buddy nudged the bag with his foot, and when it started squirming around, the girls started squealing and ran off. We took the bag to a local vet who would milk the venom for medical purposes etc.

I wouldn't mess around with other rattlers, and we were darned careful handling the ones we caught. Luckily I was with a guy who'd been doing it most of his life.

I prefer snakes to spiders. I've never had a snake go across my face in the middle of the night, or climb over my hand while I am climbing an antenna tower, or hitch a ride in my dog's mouth with it's little legs sticking out the sides flailing around.

While I have had my share of close encounters, usually I haven't had a camera along. In the one below I did as we were doing some desert survival field exercises for purposes of shooting photos for a project. As it happened, we ended up the exercise one afternoon at the Verde River (yes, we do have a few running rivers through our Arizona desert) where we discovered this fellow. We were walking along in line when all of a sudden the guy in front started running backwards at warp speed and it quickly became obvious why. He damn near stepped on him. He's a lot more obvious in the photos than he was in real life just slithering along, before he coiled and started rattling.

From the past descriptions of the Killeen area, it sounds like there were a lot of snakes... some with legs, some without.

Yup

Sotto,
Where was this photo taken?

The pic was taken up on a mountain top in the San Bernadino Mountains of SoCal.

Actually, a little of both. Although the picture doesn't show that there was some overhang to the rock above the coiled rattler.