If you grow up around rattlers in Texas, you get used to them and sort of "stay aware" and either kill or avoid them. As kids we hunted them and moccasins with BB guns, shooting them in the head will take the salt out of them.
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
In the southern part of Texas where it rarely freezes, the do not hibernate and keep growing and growing ,,, - believe me, when you run across one of those big ones warming itself in the trail it can give you a start, especially when walking in from a deer stand after dark!
My place in Farmersville is just 30 mile north of RKrodle's, and we had to stop watering the front lawn in the summer because it attracted baby timber rattlers up onto the front porch! This has been told to me by multiple rural folk in North Texas, so maybe Ricky does not water his yard?
Like Ricky, I dislike copperheads more than rattles - they are hard to see and sneaky little dudes.
CRS, NRA Benefactor Member, TSRA, DRSS, DWWC, Whittington Center
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