Blame bswiv for this thread!

[hogdogs]

His pic of the snake got me rememberin' the days of bulletproof (snake proof too) youth... As a teen in Louisiana I did some pretty stupid (brave and brazen is what we called it then) stuff in the name of both huntin' and money makin'...

We could sell all soft shell and snapper turtles to ol' cajun folks. We also had a licensed venomous snake wrangler that would buy copperheads, rattlers and cottonmouths at the "backdoor". We knew the values and were not cheap either. For the turtles we would scuffle walk barefooted in the county ditches known as coulees. when we felt what seemed to be a turtle shell we would reach down and bring it up hoping we had it gripped in a safe place. While we did get a few bloody bites to feet and fingers, none of us lost appendages. Many bad cuts from broken beer bottles was far riskier!

We also pulled up our share of old hub caps too...

We sold these for no less than $15 bucks for a 12 incher but more often we got $25-40 bucks each.

For snake hunting, we prodded a few holes for rattlers but they didn't seem very prevalent. We did, however, have several "honey holes" for "moccs". Come a dry spell these "swamps" would dry to "pools". Literally hundreds to thousands of moccs would be stacked like slithering cord wood in a 20 foot wide ankle deep pool that had been a half acre thigh to waist deep swamp. We would get in there with old putters and/or sticks and pillow cases and lay to 'em! The snake feller would pay 10-15 bucks each on average and we would deliver 100-200 per day until he would cut us off. He gave us 20-50 bucks for the copperheads. We would take a semi rotted (good wood was too heavy to tote all day) limb about 2-2.5 inch diameter. When we seen the copperhead we gave chase and pinned his head down and grabbed him up. I remember one we had in a pickle jug and I had harrassed him thru the glass for better than hour and I dropped the jar. When it broke that sumbuck had nuttin' but hate for me and did a 180 to chase after me... My buddies about peed their pants laughin' at me! I hope ya'll got half the kick outta readin' this as I got remembering it!
Brent

 

[Swampghost]

Hunting' snakes while hunting' other critters was worth more than a weeks pay back in the day of making $90 a week.

The serpentarium in Miami paid by the species/inch. A good sized coral snake was first prize here.

We were out hunting rabbits when my buddy sees a copperhead go into a rotted log. We busted that thing open and all of these little copperheads went everywhere. About that time a lizard runs up my buddy's pants leg and you know what he's thinking. It was before disco so he must have been jitterbugging. That was good for months of laughs back in town.

 

[fisherman66]

We had a hive of bees in the wall of our building at work a couple weeks back. A couple dozen died in my office. The next day I delighted myself by sprinkling dead honey bees on the desks of the ladies I work with while they were in the ladies' room.

I've kilt my fair share of snakes and even skinned and tanned a couple. I caught a six foot rat snaked out in the woods with some friends. I didn't want to haul around the carcass and I didn't have a knife, so I skinned it with a soda can I tore in half and folded it dry skin out and tucked it in my pocket. Nothing seem bizarre until I saw the revulsion in their faces.