Rattlesnake Catcher

This semester I am taking a fiction class at Chandler Gilbert Community College. I just finished a story in which one of the characters is a rattlesnake hunter. The idea for the story has been stirring in the back of my mind ever since my husband and I met a rattlesnake catcher while hiking near Weaver's Needle this spring.

There was just one problem.

I needed to talk to someone familiar with rattlesnakes for some facts for the story and I didn't have this guy's contact information. Then I read on a friend's Facebook page about how she went camping and one of the people in her group caught and skinned a rattler. I contacted her and she set up a phone interview for me with her friend "Frank" (not his real name.)

One more problem.

Frank started wondering who I REALLY was and became worried that he might get in trouble talking with me, so he googled my name, except he spelled it wrong, leaving off the E. Apparently, Lynn Hartke, without the E, is a animal rights advocacy lawyer out of St Louis.

Frank freaked. He called my friend and she had to be very persuasive to get him to talk to me.

I could tell he was still leery during our phone interview the next day.

My first question, "What's the best way to pick up a rattlesnake?"

Answer: "When it's dead." (This was not very helpful.)

I eventually found out the things I needed to know, promising that his name would never appear on anything that I was writing. And I now know more about rattlesnakes then I really care to know. (Frank likes to skin his snakes while still alive. I have pictures.)

This blog isn't really about snakes, but about communication. We all know that communication is a tricky thing. Frank and I got off on the wrong foot because he thought I was not being honest about who I really was. It took an effort to reestablish a level of trust.

But miscommunication is not limited to strangers. We can struggle with understanding people who we have known for years. Kevin and I still work on communication after almost thirty years of marriage.

Now, I realize I should have ended this blog two paragraphs ago, because NOT ONE of you is thinking about communication. What you're really thinking is HOW DOES HE SKIN A LIVE RATTLESNAKE?

Well, here's a picture:

He cuts the main nerve first, but still has to be careful because there is still venom in the fangs.

He works carefully, using a sharp knife, until all the skin is free from the body. He told me some people like to put the snake in a cooler first to put it into hibernation, but that can give a false sense of security, if the snake suddenly "comes to life" while you are skinning it.

The fiction story, Rattlesnake Man, that I wrote from this research was published in The Gila River Review and can be read online when you click on the link.

Any other snake stories out there?