Hunting snakes and turtles for food

In California no license of any kind is required to harvest rattlesnakes 24/7/360 by any method. In California rattlesnakes occur from sealevel to over 10,000 feet in elevation in almost all environments. This provides some reason to learn harvesting them for survival food. Besides, they are supposed to taste like chicken!

So, with new pellet gun and soon-to-be constructed snake stick [old golf club shaft extended by aluminum solid rod], I will be hitting the hills soon. I will be accompanied by a friend who claims extensive herpetological experience and some snake eating. I have checked for the location and route to the nearest hospital and anti-venom.

Experiences? Thoughts?

Thanks.

All I can say is snake is pretty decent eating and turtle is sublime!

Might want to check out how to ID protected species.
Green Mojave Rattler could be one.

(I don't know but think I saw mention of something like that on Survivorman)

The desert tortoises are also protected.

Remember that dead rattle snakes can still bite !
The old wives tale about a snake not really being dead till after sundown has some small "bite" of truth to it.

Experience hunting and eating. No. Finding, killing, eating Yes.

Advice? Have fun with the pellet gun, hope you can pump it up high enough and have good aim from 10 yards away through the brush for a head shot (or several). Personally I wouldn't 'hunt' a rattler with anything less than a .22 shotshell and prefer my .410 Snake Charmer.

Number one - good luck finding them. I've seen maybe 3 in my 20 years of growing up there.

Number two - make sure you're not hunting on the other 5 days of the year...

You certainly don't need a gun to harvest rattlesnakes. My preferred implement was a shovel, either round or square nosed, mostly because that was what I had handy on archaeological digs. Rocks were also highly effective - quieter and with less pernicious ricochets.

Notice the above is in past tense. Through the years, I have tended to leave the snakes alone - when we meet, they go in one direction and I go in the other. They perform a very useful function in regulating rodent populations, although I guess after you have harvested the rattlers, the logical second course would be mice (Would you like them fried, or roasted, Sir?).

The last snake I killed was over forty years ago and it occurred in a National Park. My oldest daughter was eighteen months old and we had a large diamondback lurking around our isolated trailer site I was occupying during a project there. The shovel worked much better than the revolver in that situation.

In twenty-five years of SAR experience around Tucson, AZ, - some 400 operations, we never had a single snake bite victim. The closest was a gentleman scrambling up a rocky face, who upon coming face to face with a rattler, lost his grip and fell, sustaining multiple fractures. We responded to a myriad of fall victims. That is not to say, of course, that no one was bitten during that time. Undoubtedly, a good many victims walked themselves out.

I did attend a very informative presentation by a Tucson physician on his treatment of some fifty victims in the area. They fell into two broad classes. One was young children playing around their home, typically around steps, who were frequently bitten on or near the face. The second group were young males, deliberately seeking out snakes.

Be careful out there.

Yes, you can eat them. Catching, cleaning and cooking are easy once you learn a few tricks. Be aware that many turtles carry salmonella, and animals that that inhabit sewage polluted water will be infected by it. So watch how you swing the knife while cleaning, wash your hands, keep uncooked meat away from cooked meat and foods served raw, and cook the meat thoroughly.

Be aware that turtles and snakes don't reproduce very fast. They lay a lot of eggs but their early-life mortality rate is quite high. Just about everything out there feeds on baby snakes and turtles. One hunter working a large area isn't much of an issue long-term but it is pretty easy to exceed the carrying capacity. Something you won't know you have done until several years after the fact.

It also has to pointed out that the most effective gun for dealing with snakes is ... a stick. Who in their right mind shoots them from 10 yards away when you can walk up and bag them? A waste of ammunition to even try to shoot them. Besides, snakes and turtles keep longer if you don't kill them. Just pin them, pick them up, and stuff them into a sack.

Using a gun of turtles isn't much better. Shoot one on a log and it will fall off. Good chance it gets lost. Waste of game and ammunition. Use a dip net. Cheaper, faster, surer, less noisy. When they are on the water's edge you step out into the water and pick them up them when they make a run for it. Or sneak the net below them when they are sunning on a log and they dive right in. Did a lot of that when I was a kid.

In the water shuffle your feet. Alligator snappers and gators tend to bite first, and then move, if you step on them. If you bump them they slink off. They are both ambush predators and if they are interrupted, but not threatened, they simply move and set up elsewhere.

Of course in the water you're going to run into water snakes. Most will run from you but water moccasins can get aggressive. They aren't dangerous at a couple of meters away and unless they are standing still, in which case they are harmless, they are close to impossible to reliably hit with a gun because they move fast. Even a shotgun doesn't do much good. At close range the shot doesn't spread enough to hit a significant area. Makes an lot of noise and an impressive splash.

A pistol loaded with rat-shot shells can serve for ranges under ten feet but a stick is simply the better tool for the job. A stick always works, never jams, never runs out of ammunition. Sticks are also free. Whack the water in front of a snake with the flat of the stick swung overhead and most will turn and run. Snakes sense the impact and vibration from the water. Hitting them never fails to back them off or kill them.

Some very good points.

I forgot to include that in California turtles can only be taken be holders of valid fishing licenses and only by hook and line. My target turtles will be red ear sliders which are an invasive species crowding out, primarily, the western box turtle. I appreciate the turtle handling tips.

Fortunately or unfortunately in my area most of the water snakes, snapping turtles, etcetera do not exist.

Sorry I was not clear: snakes will be captured alive using snake sticks but dispatched in the field almost immediately by beheading. I do not know what the rules are about transporting live rattlesnakes but I think and will guess that unless you have a collecting permit that is not allowed in CA, but I am not putting live rattlesnakes in my vehicle in any event.

The pellet gun is for rabbits, squirrels,and turkeys when in season. For Friday it is to try to zero in the new gun with its new scope and generally make it my friend in the field. I will be bringing targets and a pellet trap box to mount them on.

If you decide to come southbound to the southern fringes of Kern County,The Mojave Green is Known to habitate that area.They are usually no longer than 2 ft. Tops,& As I understand it,There is NO Anti-venin for this particular Rattler,though I haven't heard of anyone Kicking the Bucket,Either!I have eaten quite a few Rattlesnakes,& NONE tasted like Chicken!Rattlesnake tastes just like Rattlesnake with a slight hint of...Rattlesnake!Don't be surprised to see a Rattlesnake swimming,ALL snakes can swim!I've seen 2 at 1 time,Swimming on The Kern River,& 1 on Lake Isabella!Be Careful & Good Luck!

Often in the rocks enjoying some sun this time of year as it cools down. (All except for the last week! 100*F+)

MDinana- Not sure where you grew up here but as a kid when exploring we saw them almost every trip. (This is around Sacramento and the foothills).

I've seen Rattlers in Ballona Creek,Hughes Hills,Baldwin Hills,Malibu Cyns,Santa Monica Cyns,The Santa Monica Mountain Range is Full of em',Anytime of year!They even have one at Disneyland in Anaheim!

Orange County. I saw 2 nearly back to back one day in the Santa Monica foothills (about a day apart, early morning) and once up in the Sierras somewhere. Maybe 1 in the Chino foothills too. Of course, I stayed on mainly trails, not bushwacking. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Snapping turtles are on my list as part of a survival stew,much better than Rat!!.the lakes in Northern Minnesota are full of them and like this one finding them wandering around the woods between lakes is not unusual.

i would however expect a bunch of fly-in fisherman or Boy Scouts on one of their Northern Tier Adventures to stumble onto me before i had to roast a turtle.

You will be pushing it hunting turkeys with a pellet gun. This will not be a humane kill except in rare circumstances. Don't fall for the stupid (Gamo) pellet gun ads that show Buba standing next to a 700lb boar they took with their pellet gun. I have pellet guns and love them. But for hunting, limit yourself to very small animals.

Hard to gauge scale but that snapper looks like a good sized one. Shell looks to be most of a foot long. About big enough to make a nice meal for two. Or take a finger, or three, if you don't watch out. Down here a lot of kids grow up surrounded by concrete and large snappers are an accident waiting to happen. Those smart enough to recognize the hissing and gaping jaws, big enough to fit a baseball in, as dangerous often don't realize exactly how far a snapper's neck can stretch. Easy to get a free manicure, all the way to the second knuckle. Another reason many country boys can't do math.

I don't know the official figure is but I estimate that their reach is pretty much the length of their shell measured from the head end of the shell. With head retracted people get fooled into coming too close. And once they bite they are quite stubborn about hanging on. Good way to loose a finger or three.

No great harm experimenting as long as you use a stick.

Another interesting effect is that snapping turtles are often inhabited by leeches. A friend killed a couple of snappers and went on fishing. He was horrified when he found a couple of leeches climbing up his leg and another half dozen making tracks toward him. He just about lost it.

Leeches lose interest in dead bodies so they went looking for a warm one. In the boat he was 'it'. Funny how some grow men get freaked out by leeches. Charge into NK with nothing but a can of peaches and a P-38 ... no problem. Leeches ... forget about it. Can't handle it. LOL.

California law allows turkey hunting with air guns over .20 caliber. Talked with several game wardens about this and they say a head shot is a dead-right-there shot, but nothing else likely to work on turkeys.

With practice and the right ammo for the gun, the scoped and zeroed-in pellet rifle does group shots at 25 yards in areas little bigger than a dime. Target shooting first to get the system optimized, then rabbit and squirrel hunting to be sure everything is a go in the field, then maybe a very free range Thanksgiving turkey this year!

I lived in Coalinga as a boy in the early 70's. One day while out with my dad, his friend and our dog while they were hunting, the dog ran past me on a thin dirt dike and I actually fell down into an area where several rattlesnakes had holes. Dad and buddy had to pop a few with their shotguns to keep the snakes away and rescue me.

I personally don't remember the experience but there were snakes in Coalinga. No doubt.