When I lived in NC I had a friend who used to snake hunt. He'd go right by the house I was renting on the side of the mountain overlooking the stream (beautiful). Here's some pics of him handling the snakes that I took. The snakes were right by our feet, not two-three feet away. The one he's milking is an eastern diamondback and the other is a timber rattler. He had a copperhead in the cage and a cottonmouth with a head the size of your fist. He was bit a few weeks before on the thumb and it was all black and swollen. He was in the hospital taking anti-venom and they wanted him to stay overnight for observation but he told them he couldn't because he was going on a big snake hunt the next day.
Oh, and the really big monster (eastern diamondbacks) like in the pic above all come from Florida. I've seen (my NC buddy) numerous actual pics of these things and they do exist and quite frequently. I've never seen big rattlers like that come from anywhere else.
Last edited by warbirdlover; 03-05-2011 at 08:07 AM.