[Inspector3711]

Those are some big rattlers. I had a friend in high school around 1980 and his parents had 40 acres of vacation property in eastern Washington not too far from Goldendale. They called the neighboring ridge rattlesnake ridge and for good reason. We would wander around the property with .22 rifles (mine a Marlin and his an old Remington, both bolt guns) looking for snakes. We might bag several in a day between the two of us if it didn't get too hot to keep us from trying. It could hit 105ºF there. The biggest we ever saw was about half the size of the smaller one pictured of the two big ones. We would occasionally find a nest of 6 or 7 in a hole or under a stump. Most of them were 4 feet long or less.

The meat was quite tasty! I haven't eaten snake since. One of these days I may have to take a trip over there..

One day his nephew was dinking around under the camp trailer and somebody went to check on him. The kid was probably four or five. He was under there poking at a diamondback with a stick! Mr. snake was quite riled up. We hauled it out of there with a rake and put one in it's head. Scary moment!