[ahenry]

I have never used snake shot myself, but I know of lots of people that do and swear by it as a great snake getter. This does bring to mind the first time I ever shot a snake though...

It was years ago when I was about 10, and I was at my grandfathers ranch in south Texas. It was a cow feeding morning and I was getting antsy because nobody seemed in a hurry to get started (growing up that was my favorite ranch job, plus I always got to go shooting once we were done). I loaded my grandfathers 22 pistol (an old 9 shot revolver) that my grandmother had once used to do trick shooting with. Put everything in the pickup, ready to go and waited....and waited....and waited, the men were in another one of those never ending adult discussions. Finally somebody tossed me the keys to the truck and told me to go load a few bales of hay from the hay barn (in hind sight I think it was just to get me out of their hair). Always excited to get the opportunity to drive on my own, I listened with thinly veiled impatience while I got the usual safety lectures about snakes. You know, “always lift the bale away from you”, and “don’t get close to one, they can strike from farther away than you think”, just the usual stuff.

Well after the 75 second drive to the barn (and that includes a gate) I backed up to the stack of bales and started loading those incredibly heavy things (at least they were at the time, I don’t think they make them as heavy as the used to). I had a couple loaded and all the sudden I heard it! A rattle! I think I jumped up and backwards about 5 feet, and landed on top of the hood. I surveyed the ground for any of the evil creatures, leery of their incredible striking capabilities and not just a little afraid that I mind end up snake bitten while hiding on top of the truck. I found the thing coiled up no more than ten or fifteen feet away, preparing to bite me! Being bitten while hiding on the truck hood didn’t seem a very noble way to go, so I decided I should at least try to kill it before it killed me. I wasn’t supposed to shoot without some supervision, but I figured my parents would rather have me alive to spank rather than dead to bemoan that silly rule. After crawling across the top of the truck to the bed, I carefully stretched as far as I could into the open window to grab the pistol. “Crap (at that age that was the limit of my expletives), too far away.” Deciding that if that snake was going to bite me anyway I might as well be bitten while trying to get the pistol I made a dive (the likes of which any Olympic class diver would have been proud of) through the open window expecting the snake to bite the soles of my feet, I could almost feel the snake breathing on me through the soles of my boots. I grabbed my only chance of survival (driving away would have been just to embarrassing, how could I call myself a man if I ran from a snake?) and aimed... Just in time I remembered how I had been told that shooting from inside the cab could make you go deaf (ok so they exaggerated a tad). I carefully stepped out of the cab with pistol in hand, dutifully aware of the snakes ability to strike from farther away than you expect. Again I aimed for the head....and aimed for the head....and aimed for the head. “Crap! Why can’t he just stop moving his head around?” Deciding that even snakes have some sort of vital organs I shot at the more steady body of the snake. Well judging by the increase in rattling that didn’t work very well. So I shot again, and again, and again...click. “Oh no! Must be bad ammo!” I quickly emptied the cylinder and re-loaded. As I was doing this I noticed from the brass that came out of the cylinder, that not only was the ammo faulty, somehow the factory had forgotten to even put a bullet, or even powder in the brass. That seemed odd, but I couldn’t afford it more thought, there was a deadly snake right on my heels that I had to kill. Again I shot, and shot and shot, before I knew it I came across more bad ammo! I groaned at my luck, and with blazing speed I reloaded yet again. My fingers were loading so fast and I was shooting so fast the individual cracks became a roar of mighty firepower. Before I knew it I was completely out of ammo. It had required an entire 50 round box of 22’s to kill the mighty snake, but by golly, there he was all bloody, and as the roar from my mighty pistol subsided I was aware of the sounds of silence. I had won! Thoughts of a snakeskin belt, or maybe a new pair of snakeskin boots filled my head. I started to walk towards the snake but just in time I remembered that even a dead snake can strike, something about “muscle memory”. Not quite sure how a muscle remembers something I nonetheless marveled at the incredible killing abilities of the lowly snake from a safe distance across the barn.

As the heat of battle melted away I carefully approached and noticed that there where lots of holes in the body, nowhere near 50 but I figured that was ok since a lot of that ammo had come from the factory without any bullets or powder. Beginning to fear that my new belt was ruined and boots would be completely out of the question. I found some long sticks and drug the snake out to the tall grass. I loaded the rest of the hay and drove back to the house, saddened at my loss of a snakeskin belt, but proud of having overcome what had to be one of the deadliest animals known to man. I pulled into the driveway and steeled myself for the intense interrogation I knew I would face for having shot without permission. My grandfather and dad walked out and looked at me. My dad said, “I heard you shooting up there, what happened?” After I told them about the mighty battle that had raged just a few hundred yards from the house, my bravery was rewarded with forgiveness from my dad and a comment from grandfather, “It took you a whole box?”