bow madness

in all my years in archery, I've seen, some spectacular shots.

two of them were made by a good friend and fellow bow hunter near the place i made an earlier post about.

we had finished a day's bow hunt, packed and secured out bows and equipment and were heading back to the paved hiway and home bound.

we were in my, at the time, Mitsubishi truck with a cab-over, six-pak camper (which is where we had stowed our gear). the camper was accessible thru the cab by way of a "boot" between them. at the time, my kids were not grown and when we traveled, access to the camper was frequent and needed...hence, the "boot". i (and those similar to me in size) could make it thru the boot to/from the cab/camper.

as we bounced our way down the access road back to paved road, we noticed what i though was a "cow patty", after all, it was cow country and there were free ranging cattle in the area.

when we were nearly on top of the "Patty" we now could plainly see it was a HUGE coiled up rattlesnake! one of the common Mohave green ones, but nevertheless...HUGE! and with an attitude, to boot.

we all know that the rattlesnake is a pit viper and utilizes its heat sensing glands to locate it's prey, make it's strike, follow the victim, then swallow it whole by way of it's detachable jaw. we surmised the heat from the vehicle had it in a "sensory overload" during the course of an already blazing hot day. who knows for sure? we certainly had no intentions of asking the reptile.

we didn't want to run over the creature...that's not really very "fair" is it? to knowingly run over a snake..to run over one unintentionally is another matter...at least in my opinion.

the very hostile serpent had no intentions of allowing us anywhere near it, even though we remained in the truck and began rattling it's warnings and striking with an alarming vengeance that would make anyone think twice about approaching this critter; one of the sounds that will remain permanently embedded in your memory.

since neither of us wanted to get out of the truck to look closer, it was determined i would slowly drive OVER the hostile rattler while my friend would crawl thru the boot, into the camper, assemble and string his take down recurve bow and try a shot at it from the back door of the camper once it had cleared the snake.

i clutched the truck into first gear and slowly let out the clutch so as to move ever so slowly over the venomous reptile without actually "running over" it wqhile waiting to hear the OK to stop from my now ready friend.

i heard him say "OK, stop" then i head the "thunk" of his recurve bow on release.

"OK...pull forward...i think i got it..." was what i heard next.

i slowly pulled approximately 10 yards away from the now writhing snake, stopped, set the emergency brake, shut off the engine, then we both dismounted.

i don't know how many of you have taken snakes during the course of a hunt, but they seem to be very hard to kill. they seem to have a life-after-death feature that is very uncanny. they will continue to writhe and respond to outside stimuli even after the head has been totally severed. it can be quite a spectacle.

I've touched rattlers, whose heads i personally severed, so i KNOW they were of NO threat, and they responded to touch just as though they still felt the touch...very unsettling experience, to say the least. it's almost a if the body didn't know it was dead.

we watched for a few minutes until it was safe to move in and remove the head and dispose of it so it would no longer be a threat. the glands and fangs may still be a threat if handled carelessly.

we could plainly see a circle the size of a quarter in the snakes head where my friends rubber blunt tipped arrow had cleanly struck the head. (the blunt point was coated with dust so it transferred to the head of the snake upon impact)

it was without a doubt, one of the best shots I've ever witnessed. my friend shot the arrow from the open back door of a camper in a nearly perfect, perpendicular angle, his body bent at nearly, a 90 degree angle at the waist, to execute the shot, dead center of the snakes head...the impact from the 56# bow at that range, no doubt,pulverized the inside of the head turning everything inside to mush and shutting down the command and control center of the snake.

doesn't sound too difficult? try it sometime...

the statistics on the snake are 52" in length AFTER removal of the head, 12 buttons and quite healthy...weighed in at an estimated 8-10 lbs.

these predators command my respect at ALL times when I'm out and about hunting, cutting weeds or just wandering around my property. they go from docile to VERY hostile in 15 milliseconds when encountered, intentionally or not. they are equipped very well to defend themselves in any situation you can imagine.

to this day, my friend has that hide mounted in his den, a reminder of days and places long gone, remaining only in our fading memories.

we still talk about that day...

that was one shot...I'll tell about the other in another blog posting