00:00:14 Speaker 1: My name is Clay Nukeleman. This is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called The Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast, presented by f h F Gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the place as we explore. 00:00:41 Speaker 2: This is quite an environment we have in here for the render right now. It is everybody's heart as racing. 00:00:48 Speaker 1: A lot, not me and Brad and bears bear. 00:00:51 Speaker 2: Nope, you feel no increased anxiety in your nervous system right now. 00:00:56 Speaker 1: Hey, if that if what is in that bucket was crawling across my left, you just chill. I mean, it's probably not. 00:01:03 Speaker 2: Like an equine animal its census fear. 00:01:05 Speaker 1: Yeah, is that right? Brad? 00:01:08 Speaker 3: Is that why that one's being weird right now? I don't know, because I'll just be honest. I am not cool as a cucumber, Josh. 00:01:17 Speaker 1: Really, your heart's beating fast knowing that. 00:01:22 Speaker 2: A little it's not like it's I think it's anticipation, Okay. I think once we talk about it and see it, I'll calm down a little bit. But I have to be honest at my heart rate is well a little. 00:01:35 Speaker 1: Why Josh's heart is palpating is because within about two feet of him is a in. 00:01:42 Speaker 2: A bucket two feet on either side. 00:01:44 Speaker 1: Is that a tell us what that is? Brad? 00:01:46 Speaker 4: This is a timber rettlesnake, and that is a Western diamondback rettle snake. 00:01:50 Speaker 1: There in five gallon They look like snake. Well, the depot buckets, but it's a but it's a lid that is made for an animal. Looks like it's got holes in it. We got a bunch of snakes in here. We've got a diamondback, a timber rattler, and a Teastern indigo snak. Which one do you want to show us first? 00:02:10 Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. We want to show him right now? Should we introduce? 00:02:13 Speaker 1: Okay man, I'm just so excited. We've got no mystery guest. Guys. Mystery guests is over. This is Brad Birchfield. Brad is uh. 00:02:22 Speaker 3: He's really sorry, Brad, that was the lame introd. 00:02:28 Speaker 1: Doesn't need an he doesn't need a fancy mystery intro. I have Josh land bridge Fieldmaker, Bear John nukeomb here Bush Whack to Turkey this week mistery Newcomb, who is very scared over here, and then her guests of Brad Birchfield for those for those who are anticipating this render, we're going to talk about the cobra scare, but we're going to have our own cobra scare today. We have lots of snakes in here. 00:02:55 Speaker 2: Brad. 00:02:56 Speaker 1: How long you been into snakes man? 00:02:58 Speaker 2: Ever? 00:02:59 Speaker 4: Since I was a small child, like I would say, my earliest memory is probably about four four years old, just being really obsessed. I was into dinosaurs as a child, a lot of snakes. 00:03:09 Speaker 2: We have a dinosaur I did. 00:03:12 Speaker 4: My dad built me a dinosaur in my backyard, twelve foot tall and still there. Yeah, my dad built the dinosaurs in the city of mountain. 00:03:19 Speaker 1: Berg, you know those big giant dinosaurs in the city of mountain Burg here in Arkansas. 00:03:23 Speaker 4: So my father built those due to my obsession with reptiles. But you know, wow, that was back in the seventies when there was just books and like, you couldn't find real dinosaurs, but you could find reptiles, and so it was kind of easy transition into snakes, I guess. 00:03:37 Speaker 1: But Brad, you are I don't know you real well, but you're the most normal snake guy. 00:03:43 Speaker 2: I would agree. I appreciate that. Yes, yes, world, you do. 00:03:48 Speaker 4: Tend to run into some extreme personalities. 00:03:51 Speaker 2: Snake yes people and big cat people. 00:03:55 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:03:55 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they're kind of in the same category, you think, so, Brad, Oh, absolutely do you have any big cats? Never wanted on desire. 00:04:02 Speaker 4: But a funny side note, I was watching The Tiger King or whatever when and the first episode there's actually a guy I knew that was on there. 00:04:12 Speaker 1: So wow, so small world. Now you're you're you're not How how do you classify your stuf because you're not a You're not a like an academic herpetologist. 00:04:22 Speaker 4: My degree is in journalism. Uh, but I just have become obsessed with snakes as a small child and just studied them and was just fascinated with them. And I probably should have went to college. They said to go to college for what you're passionate about, and I'm like, I don't know, because now I think if I went snak up and never day, I'd probably get bored with it and hate it. 00:04:38 Speaker 2: You know. So what do you do? 00:04:40 Speaker 1: So you have pet snakes, but you also catch snakes? 00:04:43 Speaker 4: Yeah, well I do a lot of we would call a herpticulturist I believe is the correct terminology, and that's someone who's in that world. But it's not a scientific a degree scientist. It does stuff. But we me and some friends. 00:04:56 Speaker 2: Yeah that's your title, Yes, a herbiculturists. 00:04:59 Speaker 6: Man, that's a good time. 00:05:00 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to spell too. 00:05:01 Speaker 4: Get business cards, but yeah, we run with a lot of people with degrees in biology and stuff like that. We just do it for fun. But I do a lot of educational programs for Boy Scouts and you know, nature centers, game and fish nature centers and stuff like that. And it's just kind of been a function of having you know, forty something snakes at your house and your wife says, why do you need these snakes? And I said, well, it's for education. I want to show these two kids and stuff. 00:05:28 Speaker 1: And she's like, oh, he's a philanthropist thus far. 00:05:31 Speaker 3: Okay, Can I ask a follow up question? How how'd you sell that to your wife? I mean at some point she wasn't your wife and you had to convince her. 00:05:40 Speaker 4: Funny story. Okay, everything I tell you will be this starts with a funny story. Yeah, when we were dating, she thought it was very amusing that I like snakes, and so on our dates we'd go driving the roads at night looking for you know, road cruising for snakes, and it was all fun. And then the day we got married, that all ended. And I had a couple of snakes at that point, which she wasn't real happy with. But we had an upstairs bedroom and I kept them up there, and they were kind of out of. 00:06:04 Speaker 2: The upstairs bedroom. That seems logical. 00:06:06 Speaker 4: Actually a few got out, but anyway, so after we got kids, the snakes got evicted. So I have to build a big building in my backyard to house my snakes. So I have a separate building now that I keep my snakes in, which she didn't realize was going to free me up to get more snakes. Yes, now I've got like between forty and fifty. I'm not really sure what kind of snakes do you have? Just a lot of, like say, all the most of the Arkansas species. And then I've got some. 00:06:35 Speaker 2: How many Arkansas species are there? 00:06:37 Speaker 4: There are thirty eight species snakes in Arket's a only six of them are venomous, okay, but I keep all the venomous except a coral snake. I've had coral snakes, but they're kind of quirky to keep in captivity. They don't do well over time, so I just kind of don't worry about them anymore. I've got a rubber one that I use in my snake presentations. But I've got a lot of like corn snakes and different kinds of king snakes. And you've heard of a bull snake. I've heard West bull snake. Go for snake. It's kind of like the black rat snake of the West. I really like that genus. So I've got several of those. And then I've only got one exotic snake. It's called a Andros Island boa, and there's not much information on them on the internet. 00:07:15 Speaker 2: It's really strange. 00:07:16 Speaker 4: But we went to a snake nerd symposium and they had a silent auction and my son was about seven, and he pulled the old Joey off of friends and had bid on everything in the room because he thought it was like guess the price. And so as they're reading the silent auction winners, I won a pocket knife, a thermometer, and then the snake and I won. I didn't want it. Yeah, Sig ended up with the snakes that's the only non native snake. I don't really get any exotics. 00:07:41 Speaker 1: So you never owned a cobra? 00:07:43 Speaker 4: No, No, I have a friend that has had cobra's and I've messed with them, and it's just not my thing. They're very quirky, very easily agitated, very intimidating. There's kind of like super fast and just you know, most of the native snakes are all pretty chill and you can kind of read their body language. Cobras are kind of on another plane. 00:08:03 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:08:04 Speaker 1: Well, my first question, so the main reason I wanted you to come today was how do I get a cobra? Well, I'm I am going to I'm going to own a cobra. 00:08:18 Speaker 4: So that is an odd thing since the Internet. I mean, there are places that sell all sorts of nasty, venous snakes. Like you can order a black Mambo, you can order a gabooon viper cobra's if you've got a credit card. Do they just show up in the mail? Now, you have to ship at Delta Dash. It's got to be picked up at the airport and dropped off the airport. And I mean there's some you. 00:08:40 Speaker 1: Know, so the regulations here are pretty loose. 00:08:43 Speaker 4: Compared to some other states. Yeah, so five years ago in Arkansas it was the wild West. There were really no laws on snakes. Really, you could have anything. Nobody cared. And then Game and Fish came up with a proposal to kind of regulate it and make you buy permit and you have to if you're keeping inless snakes, you're supposed to have a finleans keeper permit that you have to you know, meet some criteria. And then I think seventy five dollars a year and then. 00:09:08 Speaker 1: Any venomous snake. Yeah, okay, seventy five bucks a year. Yeah, that's not a problem. 00:09:14 Speaker 2: No, that's what I'm saying. It's a bargain. 00:09:16 Speaker 6: But you're not getting a cobra. 00:09:19 Speaker 1: Come on, how cool would it be? No, I commemorate the Cobra Scare podcast, and well almost cobra. 00:09:26 Speaker 2: We'll put the cobra in the Burgers Hall of Fame. 00:09:31 Speaker 1: Well, we'll put a cobra emblem on the burgaryse logo. 00:09:34 Speaker 3: Thereah, I just think about how often his mules get out, and like how challenging that is to handle. 00:09:40 Speaker 6: And now I'm going to have a snake while he's gone. 00:09:43 Speaker 1: No, So Brad, the uh so you have forty snakes. Yeah, forty is and uh, tell me about when you're going out into the wild. And first of all, let me just make clear Brad is not He doesn't sell snakes. He doesn't like catch him and kill him like Brad is. So Bear picked up a road kill copperhead that I put on my Instagram story this week when he killed his turkey. It was a copper head with its head cut off, which to those of us like me and Brad that love snakes, that's in you know, you just don't kill snakes anymore. Yeah, it probably Bear just when he put in his truck after it, he was already dead. They ran over it and pretty much, I just I'm not going to use the head. And so Brad was like, I was glad that that was a road kill. And so I want to just clarify Brad's not killing snakes. He would be the last person in the world to kill a snake. But you do go out into the wild and catch snakes, ye tell me, Like, what do you do? Like if me and you were to go out this Saturday just to have a big time, what will we. 00:10:56 Speaker 4: Do well this time of year? You know, it's like, honey, there's all these seasonal things. So right now is a good time to flip artificial cover like ten trash boards. So if you can find an old collapse barn or an old chicken house, that's where there's gonna be snakes in that, yep, And you flip that tin and you'll find stuff under there because the tin heats up. Snakes get under there in the night when it's cool, and then it heats up quicker and then they can go out and forage. They get energy from that. But that and flipping rocks, you know. 00:11:27 Speaker 1: So you'll go out and just you're just like, hey, we're gonna try to find a snake today. Oh yeah, you find a snake every time you go. 00:11:33 Speaker 4: Yeah, pretty much. I don't get skunked a lot. But you know, depends on what species. Some things are harder to find than others. 00:11:40 Speaker 1: So what if I told you that I wanted to see a big timber rattlesnake. I'm not asking you where we would go, but what would we do. 00:11:51 Speaker 4: Yeah, we'd probably find a like a south or southwest facing slope, a lot of rocks, some open canopy because they like, you know, to regulate between the shade and the sun to regulate their temperature. And it's pretty predictable once you kind of figure out, you know, connect the dots. 00:12:09 Speaker 1: Really, so it's the habitat. 00:12:11 Speaker 4: Yeah, so this is yeah, one hundred percent. 00:12:14 Speaker 1: We could find one for real right today? 00:12:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, for real. Is there a certain time of the day that they're more prone to be in the afternoon? 00:12:22 Speaker 4: I mean it all depends on temperature, you know, night, No, Now, once it gets summertime, it gets too hot. Something that people don't realize a lot of times is snakes are not very heat tolerant, just like they're not very cold tolerant. So in the wintertime, you know, snakes is too cold. In the summertime, you won't have snakes out crawling because it's too hot. So they go up under your porch and they wait till dark and then they come back out and they go tonight. So if you ask that question in mid June or July, I'd say, we're not gonna find anything out in the woods to day, So we'll just wait till tonight and then drive some roads and you'll find. 00:12:52 Speaker 1: Why are you finding snakes on roads? 00:12:55 Speaker 2: It's just transitional areas they're crossing it's not. 00:12:58 Speaker 1: I used to think that they would come up on the blacktop to gather heat doing cool nights. So that's a thing that's true. 00:13:06 Speaker 2: That's absolutely true, because we did. 00:13:08 Speaker 1: The same thing. We used to catch a lot of snakes on roads, on blacktop roads. But I always wondered if that was really true, or if that's just if you drive thirty miles a road, you're gonna just random chance the snake's just gonna be crossing. 00:13:22 Speaker 4: Yeah, especially pitt vipers, because like say, when it cools off, you know, they're ectothermic, which means they're the same temperature as the air, and so once it gets cool that the road surfaces like a battery charger for all practical purposes, they get on that and sit for a while, absorb that heat, and then they've got more energy to you know, forage and look for food in the night or reproduce or whatever. 00:13:44 Speaker 1: Now this is a dumb question, but you knew that you could have a round eyed venomous snake. 00:13:53 Speaker 4: Well I was gonna say that was I don't know that guy, but he's right in a certain perspective. So venomous snakes, all the pit vipers have elliptical pupils like a cat eyes. Everybody thinks that that's one hundred pcent true. The problem is in low light, their pupils expand just like ours do. So if you come up on a copperhead at night and you hit him with a light, his his eyes won't look like a slit, they'll look round because his pupils vlated and so. So technically what he said, you know, it's true. But now coral snakes are the only venomous snake with a round pupil. They truly have a round pupil all the time. 00:14:33 Speaker 1: Yeah, so they're daytime hunters. 00:14:35 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, But like I say, all the pit vipers, they're going to have elliptical pupils unless they've been out in the dark and their eyes have dilated and they can see better. 00:14:44 Speaker 2: Have you ever come across a coral snake? 00:14:46 Speaker 1: Never seen a coral snake? I've seen that that false coral snake. That's a king snake. 00:14:50 Speaker 4: What is that a milk snake? Yeah, then there's a scarlet king snake. 00:14:54 Speaker 1: Have you ever seen a coral snake in the wild in Arkansas? 00:14:58 Speaker 4: Not in Arkansas? 00:14:59 Speaker 1: There's they are supposed to be here. 00:15:00 Speaker 4: They are. 00:15:01 Speaker 1: Do you think they really are on? Yeah, well, why hadn't you found thee. 00:15:05 Speaker 4: It's they have very specific conditions. Coral snakes really weird. They call them fossisorial snakes, which means they stay under leaf, litter and cover. And the reason we don't have them up here in the Ozarks the washtalls is the ground's too hard down in South Arkansas between Texas, Canna, Camden, Eldorado, there's a rough triangle there that's that piny woods habitat with the soft sandy soil. That's what they like. So that's the only part of ours. So you can find it there. But they're so reclusive they stay under the cover. The only time you'll really find them. The best time to find coral snakes is after a hard rain, like if you have a really hard rain. Now, yep, the ground gets wet and they come up and they'll be on the surface. But most of the time you've got. 00:15:42 Speaker 1: So they're not in the mountains, they're not in the highlands. 00:15:44 Speaker 4: Nope, just that very limited range in southern Arkansas. 00:15:47 Speaker 1: What do you make of these these what appears to us to be an imitator snake, like a snake that is mimicking another snake. Like, so, Misty, there's the coral snake is a it's a it's a beautiful snake, black, red and yellow striped snake. I mean it looks like something your kid would draw when they were two years old. Like, I mean, it looks like a cartoon. Well, the coral snake has a certain pattern. Red touch yellow kill a fellow red touch black, friend of jack. So we were taught that. Because so when you when you when you see this snake, if red touch is yellow, it's a coral snake. If red touch is black, it's an animal. 00:16:39 Speaker 4: It's a milk snake. 00:16:40 Speaker 1: It's a milk snake in Arkansas. So anyway, why do they do you think they they did the milk snake? Had that happen? Well, you know, ready to go. 00:16:54 Speaker 6: Take us into the psychology of the snake. 00:16:56 Speaker 4: A guy wrote a paper on this and I've never read it, but he talked about why is there I like the way you do signs, Bud, I got to that yet, coral snak mimicry because milk snakes occur basically from here, you know, from the Gulf coast to Michigan, all the way to the East coast and then some some out west where there's never been coral snakes historically, So why would there be a mimic in an area where coral snakes never occurred. And you know, it's sort of like all non venous snakes when they get agitated, will rattle their tail to make you think it's a rattlesnake. It's kind of a warning, and you know it's like it's odd, you know, like the hog no snake flares its head out like a cobra. Yeah, but there are no cobras in the New World. Those are all far East snakes, so well until. 00:17:39 Speaker 1: Springfield, yes, and mister Fred, yeah, he probably. 00:17:43 Speaker 4: Let there's a lot of those things that. Yeah, it's very interesting and uh, I don't know what the answer is. 00:17:48 Speaker 1: Okay, good as long as I know you don't know the answer, and just. 00:17:54 Speaker 4: Like I just tell you, yeah, okay, the uh you know, it is interesting though that you know, bright colors in nature mean danger, and so obviously that's why the coral snake probably has bright red colors the worn it would be predator. But yeah, and like I say, milksnakes use the same defense for it would be predator because they said that bright color and anything. I need to leave this alone. 00:18:15 Speaker 2: Really. Clay and I were hunting on Wednesday and I walked around this little pond and nearly stepped on top of a gigantic moccasin. 00:18:34 Speaker 4: Are we sure it was a water moccasin? 00:18:37 Speaker 2: Of course we were. All snakes are scary and water water is a cotton mouth. 00:18:42 Speaker 1: Yes, I can verify. I got I didn't get a great look at it, but it was. 00:18:47 Speaker 2: It was. It was. 00:18:48 Speaker 1: It was as he says, it was a big It wasn't that big, Josh, probably a subway sandwich. That's not true. 00:18:56 Speaker 2: It was. I mean he was that big in the middle and it darted off. No, he it he jumped as I jumped. Yeah, and then he went under leaves, and then. 00:19:06 Speaker 4: It's probably not a cotton I will come on. 00:19:09 Speaker 1: I would bet my truck on it. It was, okay, I might trust your opinion. I really think it was. I just he yelled and jumped, and I looked, and where we were at it was a wild place. It was way up on top of a mountain, a small little pool. It was a weird place to see one. But it wasn't abandoned water snake. It was it was. It was like that solid uh And I know moccasin has a pattern, but sometimes they look solid. I feel like it was. 00:19:41 Speaker 4: Well, you know, cotton mouse has such a I refer to it as an undeserved reputation of being aggressive. But they're just very assertive. They're very sure. 00:19:50 Speaker 2: I like, walk up on one. 00:19:52 Speaker 4: A cotton mouth will usually not take off. It will coil up and gape its mouth and just kind of warn you. But he did not dart off. 00:20:00 Speaker 2: He kind of just. 00:20:01 Speaker 1: Well it, yeah he did. 00:20:04 Speaker 2: He did leave. Yeah, he did leave. 00:20:06 Speaker 1: He was right by his hole though, like he because he just disappeared into like a little roote. 00:20:12 Speaker 2: We look for him. 00:20:13 Speaker 4: It doesn't sound like cotton mouth behavior. 00:20:15 Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna believe that it was a cotton mouth. That my life was indane. 00:20:19 Speaker 1: The way Josh screamed like a woman, Yeah, yeah, that is not a good indicator. 00:20:25 Speaker 4: There are very few absolutes in the snake world. And I get tickled at our snake programs because everybody wants to know that one thing that's you know, fool proof, that's the one hundred percent, And there's very few things in the stup world that are like that. 00:20:36 Speaker 2: Is there a certain snake that you're like, man, I'd really like to find. Oh yeah, there's a list. 00:20:42 Speaker 4: So the top of the Me and a buddy started about fifteen years ago wanting to find all the venomous snakes in North America. And we're down to. 00:20:49 Speaker 2: Two and one. 00:20:51 Speaker 1: Really you've found all but two? Yeah, hey, uh, I don't want to break your your Your rocker is kind of touching that snake that. 00:20:59 Speaker 4: Might be he's making noises. Okay, I'll quit rocking. 00:21:03 Speaker 1: So Brad is in a rocking chair and his uh one of his very large snakes that's in a white like linen bag. Forward, Bear, touch that snake and move it. Bear's not afraid of it. 00:21:15 Speaker 2: Just yanked all the way there. There we go. 00:21:19 Speaker 1: Good job Bear. 00:21:20 Speaker 4: But yeah, what were we talking about the venomous caught? Oh yeah yeah yeah. So we're on this quest to catch all the venomus snakes on the back and all we do it's basically like my hobby is like birding. You know, people go out all these play similar to take a picture, except the birds can kill you. But uh so we sat on this quest and there's one little montane rattlesnake that occurs in the kind of the Boothill section of New Mexico, and it's a Mexican species, but it only ranges in the US right there, and that's like the yeah, we haven't gotten that one yet, and there are very few there, and it's a fairly sketchy area to go to because of the illegal stuff on the border. And then the other is a subspecies of one that science has kind. 00:22:03 Speaker 2: Of did away with. 00:22:04 Speaker 4: But we're we're old, we're clinging to the old ways. Is that's called a desert Massissauga. 00:22:12 Speaker 1: Where they live, they. 00:22:14 Speaker 2: Have a really spotty distribution. 00:22:15 Speaker 4: They they're on the coast of Texas, like Brownsville up to where's the spring Break place, Padre Island, Padre Island, down to Brownsville they occur, and then in West Texas they're kind of spotty, and then in Colorado and then New Mexico and in Arizona. But they're not just like a wide ranging they're very spotty distributions, and science interesting kind of doesn't recognize it now. They just call it all a western Massissauga, which I found the western Massissauga just not the desert. Wow. 00:22:43 Speaker 1: So, okay, have you been bit by a venomous snake now envenomed, never had not yet. 00:22:51 Speaker 4: No, Okay, pretty uh, pretty dangerous, you know, deal, And you know we understand the the what you know, the risk and and you know we're prepared for that because if you play with fire long enough, you're probably gonna get burnt. 00:23:04 Speaker 1: But what's your what's your take on a guy like mister Fred that's been bit so many times and doesn't like I've gotta I've gotta tell the well, let me tell the rest of the story. I have a recording of Fred telling what he did after he got bit by that banded Egyptian cobra. Oh yeah, I considered playing it. I mean, it's like gold to me, his story. But he was a young man, So let me tell that story. 00:23:29 Speaker 2: Oh, we got a new microwave. I got a microwave and it still keeps. 00:23:33 Speaker 1: We thought we had that fix. Turns out what we thought was beabing and it wasn't beeping. Mister Fred, when he got bit by that banded Egyptian cobra bitting him right on the hand and got him good, he had to. He had to put his foot on the snake and pull the cobra off of him. He he tells the story of how he finishes doing what he was doing, like he was working on something and he finished working on it, and then he told the girl that was there, like, hey, keep running this place. I'm going to run down to the hospital. 00:24:06 Speaker 2: He drove himself to the hospital. 00:24:07 Speaker 1: His wife was with him. But when he gets bit, he doesn't check into the hospital because when he was young, the first time that he was in venomed by a snake, when he was fourteen, he a went into anaphylactic shock and nearly died from because of the medicine, And so he wants to be close to the hospital in case he starts to die, but he doesn't want to check himself in. Well, how do you think hospitals feel about that? Not great, they don't. They're not real cool on it. So he goes into the waiting room and is sitting there, and you know, he's holding his arm and he said it swelled up to about his elbow, but not that bad, no pain. But he said his throat started to close up. Whatever kind of venom it would be in a cobra, his throat started to close up and he started having a hard time breeze and and he was, but but his arm just just swelled up. And long story short, as I understand that the hospital got word that this guy had been bit by a cobra and was like waiting it out, and they weren't going to have it, And so they bring a kind of a crew of people out to kind of like and and Fred, granted, is a he's a carneye. I mean like he's a. 00:25:30 Speaker 2: He's a side show. Yeah. 00:25:33 Speaker 1: That's not a bad word. 00:25:34 Speaker 2: Is it. 00:25:34 Speaker 6: I don't I don't think it's one that we say. 00:25:36 Speaker 1: Carnival. He worked at a carnival. I think it's a word. I've heard him say. He does it, he mister Fred there. 00:25:44 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Take that's a legitimate job. 00:25:47 Speaker 6: Take where I said it's a bad word out. 00:25:48 Speaker 1: No, it's an honorable, honorable trade. Bear you should look into getting into the carnival son. And basically he stands up to greet the doctor. He sees what's about to happen, and he shoots out. 00:26:03 Speaker 2: The door and he's dalling wiry. 00:26:05 Speaker 1: Yes, and it's dark outside, and he runs into the woods and and basically runs away and hides. They call the police and and there's this man hunt for Fred in this town and they're looking for him all night, and he sees flashlights and he's down in this little ravine and finally he walks out the other side of the ravine and it's been like six hours and he's fine and he yeah, he's feeling better. And so he decides he's gonna walk back to to the snake display at the carnival and so he but he knows they're looking for him, and he said he wanted to look normal, so he went into a Dollar General and bought some stuff and carried it in a Dollar General sack, just so that he would have like, he just have something to do rather than just walking down the road. 00:26:58 Speaker 2: He just have it. Well. 00:27:00 Speaker 1: Well, when he gets back to the carnival, basically the carnival owner is like like, just like, I don't know if he physically grabbed him, but like they made him go back to the hospital and he was like, I'm fine and they didn't do anything to him. So anyway, he just toughed it out. 00:27:19 Speaker 4: Yeah, wow, that's one way. 00:27:21 Speaker 2: Yeah, but that recommends. 00:27:23 Speaker 1: But he's he's been bid over twenty times and he's only had antivenom twice. That's impressive, is that? I mean, is that normal? 00:27:31 Speaker 4: No, No, I wouldn't say it's normal. You know, talking about the anphylectic shock used to They derived the anti venom from horse serum, they called it, and the antibodies and the horse and ours don't get along, and so sometimes the reaction to the antivenom was just bad or worse than the bite. So that's completely plausible. And then after twenty I don't know, you may be building up somewhat of a tolerance to the defense. 00:27:54 Speaker 2: You know, just there it is. 00:27:56 Speaker 4: Once again, in this weird world we live in, there are people that self and ventomate, and they do it very carefully, build up a tall build up tolerance. Because he actually mentioned Bill Host. 00:28:06 Speaker 1: Did you know that name? 00:28:07 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he's like. 00:28:08 Speaker 4: The mount Rushing. 00:28:09 Speaker 1: He actually like I should have known it. 00:28:11 Speaker 4: Yeah, I was surprised you didn't get a little disappointed at me. He has a kind of a roadside attraction in Florida. For fifty years it was a snake reptile gardens and he had been bitting on hundred I think it's one hundred and sixty or one hundred and sixty eight times by lies banded crates. King Kobra's like real bad stuff, and he got to the point where he could just stave it off. Wasn't a big deal, and they got blood transfusion from him to save other people's lives because he had built up his antibodies. 00:28:40 Speaker 1: So that's that was Bill. 00:28:42 Speaker 4: Yeah, that's crazy. 00:28:43 Speaker 6: That is crazy. 00:28:44 Speaker 2: My dad. 00:28:45 Speaker 1: One time, I wish Dad was here. You probably know this guy. I'm not gonna say his name. He watched a guy get bit by a copperhead kind of a kind of an animal snake guy. 00:28:56 Speaker 4: And I think I know exactly who you're talking. 00:29:00 Speaker 2: Well, Dad, I. 00:29:01 Speaker 1: Mean I don't. I don't know if I would have believed it, if somebody else would have. But Dad was like, Claire, I mean, he reached down there and that snake just nailed him right in the hand. And this guy didn't even acknowledge it. 00:29:14 Speaker 4: Yeah, like he wasn't. 00:29:16 Speaker 1: I don't remember the exact circum circumstance. It's been fifteen years since I've heard the story. And Dad said, did that snake just bute you? And he, you know, almost as if the question was offensive to him. He was like yeah, And I was like, okay, all right, well let's let's go anyway. I don't undert I don't understand. 00:29:36 Speaker 4: Yeah, that's not a good plan. 00:29:38 Speaker 2: I mean. 00:29:43 Speaker 4: We tell people the best snake bite kit, you know, they make these things you can still buy supporting good stores. It's got a nice little surgery kit with section cups and a razor, and it's kind of like. 00:29:53 Speaker 1: Wait, is that the way to go though? 00:29:55 Speaker 2: No, so what do you what? 00:29:57 Speaker 1: What? What do you carry in the field for. 00:30:00 Speaker 4: A cell phone and a set of car keys by far the best. 00:30:04 Speaker 1: There's nothing, you can do nothing. 00:30:05 Speaker 4: The only thing that will treat snake bite is anti venom and that some people always say, do you take that with you have it at your house or the thing? No, it's something that's got to be kept under you know, really controlled conditions. Then it's got to be diluted in saline and injected. It's not something you can just. 00:30:21 Speaker 2: Have it up with. 00:30:21 Speaker 4: Yeah I wish it was, but yeah, so it's uh yeah, the only the only option is to get to a hospital. 00:30:28 Speaker 1: So, okay, you're in the woods, you're back a mile and a half, you get bit by timberrelllsnake. 00:30:35 Speaker 2: What do you do? Uh? 00:30:36 Speaker 4: The first thing be try to stay calm, which would probably be hard, and then uh, you know, walk as fast as you could without getting winded back to a vehicle and get get you know, to a hospital. 00:30:49 Speaker 1: It's just that simple. 00:30:50 Speaker 4: Yeah, it really is. I mean, because, like I say, there's really nothing else you can do. Tourniquets are such a bad idea because you know the old timers, they'd say, put a tourniquet on it and then cut ex's on it. Out of a second. Once the venom hits your skin and subcutaneous level, it's in your all over. Yeah, and if you you know, section that off with a tourniquet, you're keeping this venom in there. Well, venom, it's not only a poison, it's also a digestive enzyme basically helps digest the food at the pit viper's eat. So when you pull that venom up in one area and don't let it dilate through the body, you. 00:31:22 Speaker 1: Know it's gonna it's it's gonna be terrible worse. 00:31:25 Speaker 4: So yeah, basically, if you're three four hours from medical tension that's life threatening problem, then you're probably gonna need a helicopter or something, you know. 00:31:36 Speaker 1: Call your buddy with a chopper. 00:31:37 Speaker 4: Yeah, it could get serious real quick. But you know if you're within. A friend of ours is doctor Spencer Green in Houston, and he's like the the expert and snake back in the United States. He's probably treated more than anybody, all the other doctors combined. But he always said, roughly two hours. You got two hours, you know, really two hours, you know, And there's a lot of it all for any Let let me clarify though, there's a lot of you know, there's a lot of disparity in the severity of the bite because sometimes snakes will do what's called a dry bite, where it's just kind of you annoyed the snake and he's just telling you leave me alone, and he doesn't inject any venom. And then, like I said, and a snake controlled that, Yes. 00:32:15 Speaker 1: Yeah, weren't you paying attention on episode four I did. 00:32:18 Speaker 4: That was clearly covered, but it just I remember that. But yeah, they can control the amount of venom. And if they're you know, himmed up on your porch by Jack Russell Terrier and you get bit, that snake's probably gonna sock it to you. Whereas if you're just walking out in your yard and flip flock and you actually step on one, it may be a dry bite. But you know, so there's a lot of variables. But he his ballpark was if you're within two hours of emergency medical care, you're probably gonna be fine. 00:32:43 Speaker 1: Wow. 00:32:44 Speaker 2: But you know there are exceptions of that. 00:32:45 Speaker 4: If it's a huge snake and you've got a really long walk in your Hartket salvator, you know, bad things can happen. I think we have roughly six snake bite deaths a year in the United States un States, and mostly. 00:32:57 Speaker 1: The trend of what snake is killing people. 00:32:59 Speaker 4: It's Eastern diamondbacks. 00:33:01 Speaker 2: Are the most venomous that we have in the stone. 00:33:05 Speaker 4: Proved an Eastern diamondback. I think it's technically the most dangerous. 00:33:10 Speaker 1: The most the most potent venom Yes. 00:33:13 Speaker 4: But they're in a limited range and you don't see them that often Western dimond backs. 00:33:17 Speaker 2: Just to remind everybody, we have one of those in a bucket right here. 00:33:21 Speaker 1: We're gonna look at him, We're gonna look at him in just a minute. But he can take it. You know. 00:33:25 Speaker 4: That's one of the myths on snake bite is you know a lot of people will hear this and be like, oh, I've heard that. Uh, baby, snakes can't control the amount of venom. If they bite you, they just hit you the everything they got and then baby snake's venom is like highly refined. It's more dangerous than a big snake. That is not the case. That's one of the few things that is in stone, and snake bite is a bigger snake always is going to be a worst. 00:33:45 Speaker 1: Bite really because the volume of venom. 00:33:49 Speaker 2: And the you know, the hardware. 00:33:50 Speaker 4: If you think about a baby snake is things are going to be little and a big snake's on that big stronger fans. So there's that's one of the few things that is pretty much in stone. It's a bigger snakes cut a worse bat. 00:34:01 Speaker 2: Do you have a question, do all snakes have the have the the and the the venom is from a gland by the fangs or it actually comes through the fangs. 00:34:13 Speaker 4: It comes through the things or like a hyperdiermerent meel. 00:34:15 Speaker 2: Are all snakes that way? No? 00:34:17 Speaker 4: Just okay, So coral snake is in the lapid. 00:34:22 Speaker 1: That's that's like cut like my cobras. 00:34:24 Speaker 4: And unlike the cobra. Well now they're pretty much similar. They have fixed front fangs, but they're fairly primitive. That's why I don't consider coral snakes that dangerous because they have very You have to be really dumb to get bit by a coral snake. They have to latch on and basically chew until they break the skin, and they almost salivate the venom into your system. Interesting, whereas a pit viper hits you in the blink of an eye and they've being. 00:34:48 Speaker 1: But a cobra when he hits you, he bites onto you. Yeah, he does show their chewers too, but he gets you quick though. 00:34:54 Speaker 4: Yeah. And they have bigger, more well developed fangs than like a coral snake. 00:34:58 Speaker 1: That's that's a little spookier that and you know, yeah, a pit viprate when he strikes you, I mean it's like he's just like punching you. It's like pop pop, And then he comes back a cobra when he hits you, like he's gonna yeah, even if he isn't trying to eat you, because like if you got a bit by cobra, like he knows he's not he's not striking to eat you, right, he still would latch onto you. 00:35:22 Speaker 4: Yeah, he's trying to intimate you. 00:35:24 Speaker 2: Wow. 00:35:24 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's risky. 00:35:27 Speaker 6: I have I've got I've got a couple of good snake. 00:35:30 Speaker 2: Stories, good snake stories. 00:35:32 Speaker 3: I have good snake stories. And one I have a question about that. Maybe maybe he can answer. Do we have time for snake stories? 00:35:39 Speaker 2: Okay, okay? 00:35:41 Speaker 6: First story. 00:35:41 Speaker 3: When our kids were little, probably like seven, Bear was probably seven, Josh's son was probably nine or ten. We would go on hikes and hit Josh's Josh Bilmaker's wife, Christy, and I would go with all of our kids, and so together we had like seven kids together, all a pa a pascle of kids. So one day we were out on a on a hike. I remember Shep was five because he had just gotten his tubes out of his ear. And we were out there hiking and we were on some big underneath some big bluffs, and these snakes literally just start coming off the bluff. 00:36:16 Speaker 2: Do you remember this, Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:36:21 Speaker 3: Yeah, And they just and and David, David was probably nine, and he screamed snakes and it's like these snakes are raining from the heavens and we all start screaming, and Christy grabs Shepherd so tight, and. 00:36:38 Speaker 2: I believe the words that came out of your mouth were plural. Oh yeah, I think. 00:36:44 Speaker 3: I just say, yeah, I think I think you. 00:36:48 Speaker 6: For some reason I got into the grammar of it. 00:36:50 Speaker 3: Well yeah, and then they kind of went away, and all of us were just like, what just happened? 00:36:57 Speaker 1: How many snakes? 00:36:58 Speaker 2: Do you think? So too? 00:36:59 Speaker 3: There were two, but it felt like snake's ray for the heaven. And Christie let go of Shepherd and He's just like, screwy. 00:37:11 Speaker 6: Because and Christy said, who was I holding? 00:37:14 Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. I'm like pretty sure was That's a response my wife has when she sees a snake on a movie. 00:37:23 Speaker 1: I wish you could have been here today. 00:37:25 Speaker 2: She would not have done it. Yeah, well, so were they racing? 00:37:31 Speaker 4: No? 00:37:32 Speaker 1: Were they What were the. 00:37:38 Speaker 2: Numbers on top of their That's hard to. 00:37:43 Speaker 4: Guess, would be that might be some sort of den hybernaculum and they were coming out and gravity took hold and or you know. 00:37:51 Speaker 1: Yeah they were if I remember it right, of course, I was like seven. But there were like a lot of holes and they were like going in and out of the holes whenever they got down on the ground. That look like more than ones. 00:38:03 Speaker 2: So there are definitely two, but. 00:38:06 Speaker 1: Plural okay, okay, plural? Can we I want to see these snakes. Can we get one out? Well, I mean you tell me, you tell me. If it's not a good idea. 00:38:22 Speaker 4: We can know we can certainly get them out. 00:38:24 Speaker 1: Well, I mean I brought them. I need you to stay miked up though, that's the problem. Okay, wait, what if what if we we cleared out you a space right here? We can do that here, Misty, you should need no just stand up and back up, bear, back up, Josh to come over here. I just want to I just want to see one. 00:38:43 Speaker 2: So so I think I'll take this off. 00:38:46 Speaker 1: Well, I don't want you to try not to yell. 00:38:51 Speaker 4: Yeah, I need the the other one. 00:38:55 Speaker 1: This is uh, Brad, you are gonna make your Can you have me my phone right there? Yes, sir, you're gonna make a name. You're gonna be on the legendary list of render participants by bringing by default. Oh my, look at that bad boy. 00:39:17 Speaker 2: I'll get it out. 00:39:18 Speaker 4: You'll have to come closer, okay, Oh my lord. Sometimes he gets a little excited if he strikes. 00:39:24 Speaker 2: And you found this, yea, is this a snake that you found, Brad? Yeah? 00:39:29 Speaker 4: This is a local animal. 00:39:31 Speaker 1: Is it really? 00:39:32 Speaker 2: Holy smokes? 00:39:36 Speaker 1: So yeah, that's what I'm talking about. 00:39:38 Speaker 4: What's interesting is here in Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma, these get really large. Now out west, when you see diamondbacks, they're kind of long and spinley, kind of oh, just not big and thick like this, But in the range here in Arkansas and Oklahoma, they get really large. 00:39:55 Speaker 1: Now is he Is he a little more docile because you've messed with him? 00:40:00 Speaker 4: Now, if I got close, she would see a definite change in his So he's not like friendly. 00:40:05 Speaker 1: Huh, No, good thing I'm wearing my See, look at the boots I'm wearing. 00:40:10 Speaker 4: Yeah, that's probably a good thing. 00:40:13 Speaker 1: Wow, hey, big boy. 00:40:15 Speaker 4: Sometimes it's easier to control him just by holding him like this. So the curious thing about these is, like I say, most of the deaths from rattlesnakes the United States come from this species, and it's because they have a huge range. They're all the Southwest, and they're pretty quick to get upset and bite and see that head. I think the lethal dose for an adult human would be like one hundred and fifty milligrams of venom, and he could probably dose she was about four hundred to six hundred. 00:40:44 Speaker 1: Millions, So just like straight up die from that. 00:40:47 Speaker 2: Both. 00:40:47 Speaker 4: Yeah, this could be dangerous. 00:40:48 Speaker 2: But what is that snake? Probably fifty two inches long. 00:40:52 Speaker 4: The last time measured it was seventy seventy. 00:40:55 Speaker 1: How old do you think that snake is? 00:40:57 Speaker 4: This snake is probably twenty five to thirty years old, very long lived. 00:41:01 Speaker 1: How long have you had it? 00:41:02 Speaker 4: I've had it for fifteen years and it was this big one. I got it. 00:41:05 Speaker 2: Really Yeah, have you had that? Ye oh? Yes? 00:41:09 Speaker 1: How often do you feed him? 00:41:10 Speaker 2: Uh? 00:41:11 Speaker 4: In the summertime about once every other week? 00:41:13 Speaker 1: What do you feed him? 00:41:14 Speaker 4: Interesting story there. So when I got this thing, you're doing great. It wouldn't eat. And I tried all different colors of rats and mice because you order rats and mice online they're frozen. And I tried black ones and white ones and gray ones, and then I tried live ones and he wouldn't have anything to do with it, wouldn't eat. And then one day I was driving home with my son and there's a big dead gray squirrel in her rode in from of her house and I said, hey, grab that squirrel and we threw it in the cage and he ate it. 00:41:40 Speaker 2: No way. 00:41:41 Speaker 1: Wow, this one was like feeding it old country boy a corn dog. So now it was like, this is the one I've been waiting for. 00:41:48 Speaker 4: I keep a pellet gun by the door, and every time I see a squirrel in the yard. 00:41:51 Speaker 1: So how how often do you feed him? 00:41:54 Speaker 2: Uh? About every other week in the summer? 00:41:56 Speaker 1: Really were Wow? 00:41:58 Speaker 2: What a I would like this to not mean the first time that Brad gets bit by. 00:42:05 Speaker 4: Yeah, well I'll put that one in there if he'll go. 00:42:09 Speaker 2: Sometimes he has a problem going. 00:42:13 Speaker 1: And now he breaks a lot of his rattles. 00:42:15 Speaker 4: Yes, he is notorious for breaking his rattle. That's why he doesn't have a very big one. 00:42:20 Speaker 2: That sound is unnerving. Wow? What to hear this other one? 00:42:24 Speaker 4: Now? 00:42:25 Speaker 1: Okay, wow, good job Brads. 00:42:28 Speaker 2: The closest I've ever been to a rattlesnake that wasn't in a cage. 00:42:35 Speaker 4: This is a big timor rattlesnake. This is what old timers referred to as a velvet tail. 00:42:41 Speaker 1: Now this is my favorite man. 00:42:43 Speaker 4: Some people call these cambri. 00:42:44 Speaker 1: Is he bigger littler than the other one? 00:42:47 Speaker 2: Well, holy smoke. Girth wise, he's probably a beautiful man. 00:42:53 Speaker 1: I love that. 00:42:55 Speaker 2: Listen, bro, I would like to not get friendly. 00:42:58 Speaker 4: With you, but that one, and if you'll notice, has an impressive string of rattles. He's never broken his rattles off. 00:43:06 Speaker 1: Can I do this? 00:43:07 Speaker 4: Yeah, you're good, But the demeanor of the tim rattlesninks is quite a bit different. 00:43:13 Speaker 1: Than they are. They are, They not as upset. 00:43:15 Speaker 4: They will they will tolerate a lot more. 00:43:19 Speaker 1: Good job, missy, mister put your headset on Misty's back in the corner. 00:43:26 Speaker 4: Hand on the man. But yeah, this one's got an impressive string of rattles. I think there's like twenty twenty six or twenty eight. I can't remember last time I count them, but wow, they get Like I say, that's about as big as one you'll see in Arkansas. I've only found that one. 00:43:42 Speaker 1: Does that send you a video? 00:43:44 Speaker 4: Yeah? 00:43:44 Speaker 2: That was that was a He probably. 00:43:47 Speaker 1: Wasn't that big, but it was. 00:43:49 Speaker 4: A big one. Yeah, that was awesome. 00:43:51 Speaker 1: Now I feel like right now that snake like I could reach down and touch it, uk you could. 00:43:57 Speaker 4: I wouldn't recommend it, but. 00:43:58 Speaker 1: But he's he's not Could he come from that position and hit me right now? 00:44:04 Speaker 4: So that's something I was gonna say. It's interesting about cobras. So cobras can basically only strike straight down these guys. If I get over here, he's gonna sling back over and hit me. Cobras would have to turn around, and that's that's one thing that they're a little easier to. 00:44:19 Speaker 2: That snak is probably three three and a half inches in diameter, and it's that. 00:44:23 Speaker 1: Part more than that. I bet now he's as big a round as a good subway sandwich in the middle. 00:44:29 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's definitely that. 00:44:30 Speaker 2: That water moccasin that I almost stepped on is probably three times that, is that, right? I really wish you. 00:44:36 Speaker 4: Would have gotten a picture. 00:44:37 Speaker 2: This been the state record. 00:44:39 Speaker 1: Yeah, I love now what what he's in a certain phase like that the. 00:44:46 Speaker 4: Coloration kind of the blonde phase in Arkansas. Now, he's pretty much gonna stay this color. In Arcantel, you get some of their kind of gray, have different tones of gray, and then you get some that's kind of olive green, and then you get this phase which is kind of like a blond phase, which is pretty light. 00:45:02 Speaker 1: Now, okay, Brad has critiqued my snake catching. It's not good to catch him by the back of the head. 00:45:10 Speaker 4: No why Okay, So right now his fangs are folded up in the top of his mouth. If I reach down to get him by the neck. Guess where his fangs are pointed right into my fingers, and they can bite through their bottom jaw. If they get mad enough, they'll poke their fans. 00:45:24 Speaker 2: Through their jaw, So that is bad. 00:45:26 Speaker 4: So, like I say, if the best thing is to not touch them at all, but if you have to the best technique is to like let them stretch out and get him by the tail, yeah, and get the head going away from you. Yeah, and then you can pretty much gently come under the tail and then let's say, once they're supported, God, that's big sting. 00:45:51 Speaker 1: Now does he eat squirrels? Uh? 00:45:54 Speaker 2: Yeah, he has what does he prefer? 00:45:57 Speaker 4: He will eat lab producing rats and mice. 00:46:00 Speaker 1: So he's not as picky as not a picky. 00:46:02 Speaker 4: Yeah, the diamondback will only eat squirrels and rabbits that are not produced in a lab, wild caught, wildcar profound. 00:46:11 Speaker 2: Wow. Can you strike your hand right there? 00:46:14 Speaker 1: No? 00:46:14 Speaker 2: Not in this position. 00:46:16 Speaker 4: We got gravity working against him. And then, like I say, he's using a lot of strength to come back up towards me. 00:46:22 Speaker 1: So so if you had him by the back of the head right up against his neck, he could still like stick his fangs back and hit your hand. 00:46:29 Speaker 4: Yes, really yep, And like I say, that's where your fingers are. That's why we don't do that. 00:46:34 Speaker 2: How long have you had this snake? 00:46:36 Speaker 4: This is a retired stud snake from the University of Arkansas. Oh really, buddy, Mine was doing research on something with timber raddle snakes and he was just up there making babies and they were downside of the lab and I said, I need a big Was he a wild cot Yeah, came from Madison County. That right, Yep. I say, timber radlesnakes are a lot more they'll tolerate a lot more than the diamondbacks. Because you can see he's pretty much just annoyed that I'm holding him. What is the number of rattles equate to how many times it sheds a year? Okay, so he has a good year and he'll shed two or three times, he'll get three or four, you know, two three segments on the bottom of his rattle. If he has a bad year, like a drought and there's not much to eat, then he won't you know, he'll just shed once. Now I don't sure what he's doing here doing that, but yeah, the you can't age a rattlesnake. 00:47:27 Speaker 1: Yeah, that that whole how many rattles, how many years? 00:47:29 Speaker 4: Is just not because, like I say, you think that diamondback would have a huge section of rattles, but really doesn't. So there's the timber rattlesnake right now, this guy. 00:47:41 Speaker 1: That's probably more along the lines what I need. 00:47:43 Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a good starter snake. Now, now the irony is venom wise. This guy has got a lot more different stuff in his venom, whereas the diamondbacks pretty much a straight hemotoxin, which is just the venom that. 00:48:01 Speaker 2: Attacks the red blood cells and destroys the cell walls. 00:48:05 Speaker 4: The timberrel snakes got heema tuxin and neural tousin, which is what you get in the coral sticks in the cobras. 00:48:11 Speaker 2: Wow. 00:48:11 Speaker 4: So not only does it cause tissue loss and burning and all that, it can also like shut your die frame down. 00:48:18 Speaker 2: So okay, we're good, All snakes are up. 00:48:21 Speaker 1: We'll look at that one afterwards. 00:48:22 Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, okay, all rights. 00:48:28 Speaker 1: Wow, that was that was some good. 00:48:29 Speaker 2: That was good. That was good. 00:48:31 Speaker 1: I wish you all could have seen it. So we do need to talk about the Cobra Scare podcast. I So I got to give credit to my friend Isaac Neil, who told me he he's from Springfield. I wanted him on this render but he couldn't come. 00:48:50 Speaker 6: Are they still raddling? Is that what I'm here? 00:48:51 Speaker 4: Yeah? 00:48:52 Speaker 1: They're still ling. So Isaac Neil was like, man, there's a great story in Springfield. He said, I don't know if it's really like a Bear Grease style store, but there were some cobras that got loosed the Great Cobra Scare of nineteen fifty three. There's a beer in Springfield that's named Cobra Scare. And I started researching it and I was like, Isaac, this is like big time up my alley. And the first two people that I contacted were it was Kyle Jeffries at the Mother's Brewery because these guys had named a beer Cobra Scare, and then he referred me to the museum curator, John Steller's. And when I talked to those guys, I was like, this is going to be good. And it really was one of my favorite podcasts that we've done in a while, just because it was so crazy. 00:49:41 Speaker 2: You've had quite the reaction to the video you put on Instagram. 00:49:45 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, what did you know about that would you have known about the cobra scare. 00:49:50 Speaker 4: I heard about that about five years ago, and I had never heard it before either what context? Some snake person on Facebook had a picture of a to give the sheriff holding the dead one there by the car. Yeah, it was like, you know, because black and white old, It's like, you didn't see many cobras, And I'm like, what is this? And I started doing a dig deep dive into Google and the next thing you know, I'm like, I hadn't no id, I've never heard of. 00:50:12 Speaker 1: This great cobras here fast. What stood out to you in that story? Anything stand out to you? 00:50:18 Speaker 2: Just the general. 00:50:21 Speaker 4: Outlook of people and snakes, you know, because in that time, you know, totally different time and just everybody being terrified and like these things are going to attack us, and you know, it's probably wasn't that big a deal. I mean, if your kids out playing in the yard and find some one, that's obviously bad. But these snakes weren't looking for people to bite, you know, They're just trying to hide or find food. 00:50:43 Speaker 1: Yeah, but you got to give it a little bit of credit though. Man, I would I would be spooked if they were just like, hey, there's like a bunch of cobras out here. 00:50:54 Speaker 2: Yeah, and you don't know where they come from, and you don't know how many there are. Yeah, so there's like three or four. 00:50:59 Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's I bet if that same thing happened in any city, it could happen in the country, it would be different because people are more spread out and the snakes would just kind of like disappear. But this happened in right in the middle of downtown Springfield, and there was an epicenter and all these snakes were like within just like a mile, you know, and so they had dispersed from somewhere, and I could see. I bet you'd have the same reaction today. Do you think probably people just going on lockdown, people getting crazy, people trying to do wild stuff, people leaving. 00:51:35 Speaker 5: I mean, I bet people coming, you know. I think there's people who Yeah, there'd be yeah, probably yeah. 00:51:48 Speaker 1: Yeah, what uhbing. 00:51:55 Speaker 2: Very hard? 00:51:56 Speaker 1: What stood out to you, Missy from a just whatever where you're interested in the snake cobras, the social aspects, the motherly aspects of women protecting their their children. 00:52:08 Speaker 6: Well, I mean, I don't think you heard a lot of that in the story. 00:52:11 Speaker 2: I think the. 00:52:14 Speaker 6: You know them getting it with a hoe. That's probably where my. 00:52:19 Speaker 2: Since apparently if you want to protect yourselves from snakes. 00:52:23 Speaker 3: I remember the first time I ever saw a snake, and it was my mom killing one with a hoe and I was a little bitty girl and she was hysterical, and I'm pretty sure it was like a garden steak. And that was the first time I ever saw one. And I imprinted, obviously as evidence today pretty hard. This is my mom is a pretty normal person. But they killed one with the hope. 00:52:46 Speaker 1: So what stood out to you? 00:52:48 Speaker 6: I thought my fav it was a fun podcast. 00:52:51 Speaker 3: I think the part where they were playing flutes in the streets, I think that was probably my favorite part. 00:52:58 Speaker 6: You know, we grew up in an area you always saw. You're right, the eighties were. 00:53:02 Speaker 2: The two scariest things in the eighties were cobras and quicksand yeah. 00:53:10 Speaker 3: Yeah, and yeah, and so I when they I would have known, that's not the kind of flute you play like. I would have known the flutes don't sound like that, that you've got to play them, because the picture I have in my head is like you get the high school band out there with flutes and they're on the on and they're blaring it with these loudspeakers. That's kind of how I envisioned it, but that that image was pretty funny to me. Men with pitchforks and players brow. 00:53:34 Speaker 1: Do you know much about Indian snake charmers, son was I. I did a you know, a little bit of research just trying to understand like what this means in their culture. And these guys are from my research, these guys that are snake charmers. So they're the guys that are putting these little little baskets of snakes, lifting the lid off, a big cobra jumps out there within striking distance and they're playing this flute moving while the snake is doing like this. If you watch them lots of videos, they get struck out all the time and they just kind of move out of the way or they slap. 00:54:09 Speaker 2: The snake and they to see them slap the. 00:54:15 Speaker 1: But also read that a lot of that is, uh, the snakes are not healthy snakes, like they're not feeding them and they're kind of weak. It maybe what's your what you're well, let me say what I was gonna say. They're Culturally they're known as healers and magicians, so they're kind of like these special people like, oh, you're a snake charmer, well can you can you help me? You clearly have this power. What do you know about snake charmers? 00:54:42 Speaker 4: Basically that, yeah, it's just all tied to kind of ancient medicine and healing and that kind of thing. And you know, they the snake is qing in on the movement of the flute and the you know. 00:54:54 Speaker 1: I don't understand why they don't get a bit though. I still don't understandin. 00:54:57 Speaker 4: That cobra basically construct straight down, so he's not like a like you wouldn't do that with a rattlesnake, right, would get it would bite you. But cobras are pretty predictable in the way they react, and that's why they slap them on the head and stuff because they know. But you know, it's it's dangerous for sure. But can you take the things out of a snake? Yeah, there are, but they'll grow back. Yes, sometimes there are venomoid animals, but they don't really do well. 00:55:23 Speaker 2: I mean some people do. 00:55:24 Speaker 4: That interesting little anecdote you're talking about, You know, when did cobras pop up and back then do people know about cobras? So back in the thirties, there was a guy named Ross Allen from Florida, another famous snake guy, and he did a lot of the stunt work in Tarzan, the old Tarzan cereal, and they would literally take like Eastern diamondbacks or cotton mouths and like milk them, yeah, and cobras and stuff as much as they thought they could, and then it would literally bite him on screen. Oh my god, like they just drained the venom and say you'll be fine, We've got to shoot this right now. Yeah, because the snake's on endy so wow. Yeah, they would already do that. So and I thought about that, thought, yeah, cobra's I mean books and stuff. Probably people were aware of cobras, but that would have been a pretty shocking thing. You know, you're single in Springfield, Missouri. Yeah. 00:56:14 Speaker 2: Did it work? Yeah? Yeah, he he did a lot of movies, a lot of TVs. He made it. 00:56:21 Speaker 4: Yeah, But that was that's taken your job to a whole new level. 00:56:25 Speaker 2: Did so? 00:56:26 Speaker 1: I like on the render to comment on some of the some of some of the things that that was said on the on the deal, I thought bringing the cultural image back to something that we could relate to that was helpful for me, like to understand Indian snake charmers and saying that would be like if what if Brent Reeves had a had a big timber rattler and a bucket, which would be different What you just did was is more impressive. But imagine, imagine. 00:56:56 Speaker 6: He's basically a snake driver. 00:56:58 Speaker 1: Yeah, but but but what if? 00:57:01 Speaker 2: What if? 00:57:01 Speaker 1: What if there was like that tradition here where you had I mean, there's a you can see how those guys it's a powerful cultural image. When we see it, it seems exotic, far off, not understandable, not approachable, not touchable. But like what if our little kids grew up and they were like, one day, I'm gonna be a cobra snake charmer. Or like me trying to tell Bear, you should you should really look into this, you should be a snake d you know what I mean? Like, I was just trying to find a way to like make it connectable because and obviously we don't have anything like that. 00:57:35 Speaker 4: Well I think we do, Okay, have you ever seen the snake handling churches up in that place? Well I mentioned that, I mean that's straight up, you know. Yeah, I mean that's his faith strong. 00:57:46 Speaker 1: Is that much? Is that still going on? 00:57:48 Speaker 2: Yeah? Not near as much, but they're still. It's funny. I liked a Facebook page of a church. 00:57:53 Speaker 4: I can't remember of it, but I followed it and they post videos of their service and about every six months, I'll have a snake little snake handle. 00:58:03 Speaker 2: Gnawing my fingernails off watching it. 00:58:05 Speaker 4: But and this guy's dad and his dad both died from snake back really and he said on there, it's it's very interesting their faith genuine? 00:58:14 Speaker 1: Do you think they are? Because well, but what I'm saying is that sometimes I've seen it and it feels and I mean, and I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a church going man. So like I could respect somebody doing something that they actually had faith in. And I'm not suggesting I'm not into handling snakes, but like I could see someone doing it and it like actually meaning something to them. Yeah, I mean because because me and Brad could and Bear could go probably pick up a rattlesnake in a church and it it wouldn't really have any Like I don't know how your read was these guys. 00:58:52 Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a documentary about this. One preacher's how I discovered this whole church, and uh, this guy talked to him and he talked about and he said, hey, it's not for me. And he said, I don't do it unless the Lord caused me to do it. And he said, I know the consequences, and you know he's doing He's the Lord is telling me to do this for a reason, to you know, bring somebody's faith. Guine very genuine to the point, and I'm like, man, I wish my faith was that strong. 00:59:16 Speaker 2: Because I saw you pick up well yeah, but you know, watching pick Up the Snake, it was just very like there was like a grace to like you just it was. 00:59:26 Speaker 1: It's just not that big. Yeah, yeah, interesting Bart. What stood out to you about the podcast? What was your favorite part? Well, well, first I've got a question. Did you get why he had twelve of them? Like why didn't he just have like two or three, Like it doesn't make any sense to have a hole? 00:59:45 Speaker 2: Maybe they were only sold by the dozens. 00:59:46 Speaker 4: Well probably you can't break a discount, you by, but you know, back then there wasn't much in in husbandry. They didn't have to take care of them, so they were likely going to get twelve and one or two is going to live the rest in bringing back because they didn't feed because they were kept in abysmal conditions. 01:00:02 Speaker 1: Okay, mister Fred may have some insight into this because when he mentioned that he ordered twenty five king cobras from Bangladesh and he didn't want twenty five. He wanted twelve for his snake, so he knew he wouldn't get twelve, and he actually only got three. He ordered twenty five and got three, and they shipped him to New Orleans and he went down to New Orleans. He tells a great story. He went to New Orleans, picked up like huge king kobras, like fifteen footers, and they were the customs the customs people. This is so long ago, I mean, you know, probably like the seventies or something. Maybe it was maybe it was later than that. The customs people said, we got to see these snakes. And he was like, really you want to see them? 01:00:52 Speaker 2: And they were. 01:00:53 Speaker 1: They demanded to see him and he and they're like in like an office and he's like, you want me to turn the snake loose? Here They thought he suspected that they thought there was there was drugs in there and that they were smuggling drug It was a cover of smuggle drugs. And so they were like, we want to see the snake, and he just was like are you sure? 01:01:12 Speaker 2: Are you sure? 01:01:13 Speaker 1: You want me to put this snake right here? And they're just like yep. And so he does. He pulls out a fifteen foot king kobra and just plops it in the ground. Oh my, and he it was and anyway, the room just like scatters and he gathers the snake back up and gets it in, gets it back and he was like, okay, sir, you're good to go. 01:01:35 Speaker 2: Wow. 01:01:43 Speaker 4: So I've got a friend that's I think he's eighty two now and he grew up in that era and he lived up into Ohio and he worked at a zoo and I think what he said he did. He went in and started looking at their bills of ladings and shipments and stuff they've gotten, and got the names of people in Africa and India and he started writing them as like a twelve year old kid and was like, I will provide you with you know, X amount of black rat snakes and garter snakes in this net and you please send me. And he said he would get in these boxes marked venomous snakes and he would open it up and there'd be like fifteen different snakes and bags and he didn't know what they were. And I mean as a child, and he would go get books and figure out, Okay, this is bothers Asper and this is you know not Na And yeah, I'm like, are you kidding? But yeah, apparently back then it was pretty much but he said he, yeah, he had some crazy stuff back in probably in the late fifties when he was a kid. 01:02:38 Speaker 1: So anything could go. 01:02:39 Speaker 4: Yeah. 01:02:40 Speaker 1: I made the statement that some people believe the king Kobra to be the most venomous snake in the world. My doctor Chris Jenkins of the Snake Talk podcast. He actually, I had to put it that simply like some people think it. Uh, he didn't. He said the Kingcobra actually might not even make its top three most deadly how accurate. Fact checked me on my state. Yeah, you don't. So when you heard me say that, you were like, Brito's done. You were like, they miss that. 01:03:15 Speaker 4: No, I mean, but King Kobra's they are they're large. You're talking about a big snake that can deliver a lot of venom. That's what makes it so dangerous. But as far as like on a program basis, it's not not what is a lot of the taype hands in Australia. Australia, like eighty percent of their snakes are deadly, Like, they don't have many harmless snakes there. 01:03:36 Speaker 1: They don't mess around. 01:03:37 Speaker 4: And yeah, and a lot of those venoms are a lot more toxic. And like the inland taype hand I think has the highest LD fifty. They call it an LD fifty score. And uh, but that one and then like say, the one that kills probably more people worldwide is called a saw skilled viper and it lives in the Middle East basically. And in fact, I can't remember the Bible verse about the sizzling snakes in I don't know it's in the Old Testament, but I think that's what they're referring to, because these snakes, when they get agitated, they'll roll their scales against theirselves and it makes like a sort of like a rattling or sizzling sound. But and the reason is they have very toxic venom. They're very common in where they occur as people are barefoot and there's not much medical care, so there's a lot of factors. But yeah, king cobras, that's just like, you know. 01:04:24 Speaker 2: Not that. 01:04:27 Speaker 1: Yeah, now it was the king cobra more venomous than these rattle snakes. 01:04:31 Speaker 4: Yeah, probably, okay, just because the Neuve toxic components there. 01:04:36 Speaker 1: So when I have my king cobra, yeah, and my rattlers, watch out for the king cobra. 01:04:41 Speaker 4: Yeah, I would yeah say that you didn't. 01:04:44 Speaker 1: I didn't let you finish what what what stood out to you most well? I thought that it was interesting that like people would have had no context for what a cobra was like that that would have never occurred to me. You didn't grow up in the eighties, so I don't think you really have a contact for what a cobra is. Well, I mean I've seen strike first strike Guard no mercy, sir. 01:05:06 Speaker 6: He's been raised, right, you know, he saw the right movies. 01:05:10 Speaker 1: It just seems like you just see cobras like that's just like a school man. I just know it, like it's not something you'd even think about. And yeah, so whenever like they were, you know, pulling out the flutes and stuff, and I guess you kind of explained how they weren't necessarily totally serious about that. But it just never would have occurred to me that they wouldn't have had any idea that just because they don't have like the exposure to it, they would have been looking and like encyclopedias to learn about cobra. Absolutely, I mean yeah, yeah, there's no Google, there's no YouTube. Yeah, and they wouldn't have seen it on movies and stuff growing up. Yeah, Yeah, josh Wa stood out to you. 01:05:55 Speaker 2: The whole thing was pretty interesting. But uh, I think it's interesting how the that isolated situation, I mean it went, it lasted over the period of like six weeks, yep. How much it imprinted on the identity of Springfield. 01:06:14 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the. 01:06:15 Speaker 2: Fact that they went and put it on the seal, they had the cobra haircut, I mean, all these things, like it was sensational at the time, and I mean rightly so. But just the fact that to this day, what are we sixty years later, there's still a cobra on the seal seventy one seventy one years, Yeah, there's still a cobra on the seal. I love it. I mean I love that A simple thing like that can change the destiny of a place. 01:06:43 Speaker 1: I thought Kyle Jeffers did a great job of explaining why little quirky regional things bring a lot of identity. And the guy from the brewery, he was like, he was like, yeah, every little town's got something weird that happened yep, and this was our little weird thing, you know. So I thought he did a good job of telling that kind of stuff. I'll tell you, I'll tell you this is this is behind the veil. I don't fully buy Carl Barnett's confession. 01:07:16 Speaker 2: Really, yeah, that was my favorite part. 01:07:24 Speaker 1: Okay, So so there's a there's a more extended version of the confession and they actually ask him if he had any regrets and if he wished he hadn't done it, and he kind of gets defensive and he they were like, would you would you do it different if you could do it again, and he was like, well. 01:07:45 Speaker 2: No, no, that's sucker cheated. 01:07:48 Speaker 1: And there's just something. So it's a it's a YouTube video. You can look it up, the Cobra Scare. Maybe we'll put it in the in the in the in the link, in the in the in the description, but you can watch him tell the story, and I just think, I don't know when I when I was watching him, I just was kind of like, did you really do that? Carl? I mean, I don't want to cast skepticism on we need idyll As. I understand it. Carl is no longer with us, So it was pretty back in ninety two he was. 01:08:28 Speaker 2: I mean, he was, yeah, what's the counterfactual play? 01:08:31 Speaker 3: Like if you if you say something like that, there has to be another theory for what happened. 01:08:36 Speaker 1: I just think, no, I'm not saying, I'm just saying I'm slightly skeptical that that he actually did it just from reading just reading his eyes, I'm just like that God lied to you. 01:08:51 Speaker 6: Whoa he has grandkids. 01:08:55 Speaker 1: I have no. 01:08:58 Speaker 2: Evidence. 01:09:00 Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, no. All I did was watching a YouTube video video. I just I just wondered if anybody else got that vibe. 01:09:07 Speaker 2: I did not. 01:09:08 Speaker 4: Okay, he was very sincere. 01:09:09 Speaker 2: I was like this, guys, I watched the extended one too, and I think you're you. 01:09:15 Speaker 3: I think the defensiveness is actually makes it sound more factual, more more truthful. 01:09:21 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:09:21 Speaker 4: Well, the fact that he lived with it for thirty years before telling someone. 01:09:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we'll see. 01:09:26 Speaker 1: That's part. That's part of it though, if you like, no one could dispute him. Yeah, do you understand. I mean it's like there's nobody that's gonna go, well you wait for you were at Yeah, yeah, reil Meyer couldn't have gone. I don't even know this guy, Like I didn't trade fish, Like, it's all so deep in the past. That was it too, it there and there were no other there were no other stories. But but what would his motivation be? That that's another one. If we're in the court of law, I'd be like, well, why would you lie? He has no reason to lie, which I at that other than just maybe just a little uh publicity. 01:10:04 Speaker 6: What else do you think would have could have happened? 01:10:06 Speaker 1: I mean, the snakes just got out of rail my ours pet shop, you know, I mean, they just got loose. 01:10:13 Speaker 4: Maybe you sound like a colorful guy, Yeah, yeah, like my kind of guy. 01:10:23 Speaker 2: Uh. 01:10:25 Speaker 1: Well, it was it was a fun It was a fun podcast. 01:10:29 Speaker 2: I want to hear about bears turkey. 01:10:31 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, give us the give us the version, the condensed version of your turkey hunt. Okay, well pretty much. I I hunted from opening day till Thursday and had a couple of really good opportunities on turkeys, and I kind of had an idea of what When. 01:10:50 Speaker 2: He says he hunted those days, he literally left and didn't come home. Well, he spent the night. I spent the night out there. 01:10:56 Speaker 1: Yeah. 01:10:57 Speaker 2: I had to keep. 01:11:00 Speaker 3: A big senior presentation that he had to do at school. And he shows up at our house and is like, Mom, do you know where the shirt is? 01:11:07 Speaker 2: Do you know what? 01:11:07 Speaker 6: And it's coming in from the woods and went straightway. 01:11:12 Speaker 1: I came early enough. But anyway, I over the four days, I kind of developed an idea of what they were doing. 01:11:19 Speaker 2: It was, well, and you were you were sleeping in your truck at your spot, right. 01:11:23 Speaker 1: Yeah. He would leave the house at like ten o'clock at night to go get his spot yep, and sleep in his truck. And then you know, he had a couple of guys pull in before daylight. He could stumble out, you know, and his underwear and be like, I'm darky on there. Pretty much. But uh yeah, So I kind of had an idea of what they were doing. And there was one particular turkey, the first one that I heard on opening day, and uh, I could I knew where he was roosting. But I couldn't really get in close on him every morning, but I heard him the first two days like right before like gobble down in the exact same spot, and uh, I'd go down there and try and get them, and I'd eventually find them up the mountain like four hunder yards probably maybe not that far. But in two of the days he met up with another gobbler up there, and I'd hear two of them. Would you do you have their like calendar? Pretty much like he was meeting up with another guy. It it just seemed like they were always like right there after they got up through. 01:12:23 Speaker 2: Anyway, I. 01:12:26 Speaker 1: On Thursday, I go down to where I can hear into this haller where I've been hearing some turkeys, and then kind of hear another area or to my right, but I, uh, I heard another guy. Well, I saw a bunch of headlamps like all around the haller. I saw three. Two of them were like kind of and this is a this is a hollow that's like half a mile across, but the leaves aren't still out, so you could see a headlamp like bobbing through the woods. Am I right? Yeah? And uh it seem like people were just like accumulating every day because they would hear turkeys and then come back the next day. And anyway, I get in there and there's a guy over across the haller who's alt hooting a whole bunch and crow calling and this care going on, yeah, just over and over, and I was about to actually leave because I kind of thought he was just gonna blow out all the turkeys because he was like right in the middle of where a lot of the turkeys were, and I was considering leaving, and then I heard one, the one right down on his roost where he usually is, and it was like the gun going off at a track meet. It was like you could just feel like everybody'd come off the top of the haller and just like started going towards him. But I kind of knew he was going to go up the mountain to where he was, and I knew I wasn't going to kill him on the roost or like you know, catch him flying down, and so I just kind of ran up to where I figured he'd be. And it took me a really long time because there's big blow and stuff, and it's a big hauler, and I get a. 01:14:04 Speaker 2: Scene out of Last of the Mohicans. Yeah, just running through the woods. 01:14:08 Speaker 1: I was. I was literally running at a few different point, hair flying, and I get up about where I think he's gonna be, and uh, I hear him. As I get close to that point, I can hear him gobbling up the mountain from me, and uh, as I get closer, I can hear two gobblers up there, gobbling at each other, like like one would gobble and the other one would start up right after. And I just started to get closer, you know. I figured I'd just get as close as I can and then call. But I just got closer and closer and closer. And I got to where I was like eighty yards from him, and they were up the mountain from me, and uh, they were up on this bluff above me, and I saw a break in the bluff where I could kind of get up it, and I was like, and up at the very top of it was a big rock and so like a rock as big as your truck. 01:15:01 Speaker 4: Yeah. 01:15:01 Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I figured I could get up there. Now, why didn't you want to call at them when you were that close? Well, I thought about it, but I was downhill from them, and I wanted to be above them, and I didn't know if I just didn't know if they'd come off, because at that point they were like even with me. Between me and them was a bluff. They weren't even with the part where you could get up and h okay. And so I figured i'd kind of get up that part and get even with them, and i'd pop out, you know, right next to that rock, like forty yards from is what I thought. But as I started walking up that I could hear them, just like right next to that rock, right on the other side where I couldn't see them, but I could hear their wings flapping and they were gobbling, and I guess they were fighting each other or something. And at this point I was so close to him, I was like, well, I might as well just risk it for the biscuit. Yeah. And I'd almost bush racked another one on the second day, just like I was walking and just saw him before he saw me. He just got lucky, and so I was kind of thinking I could probably do that with these ones. And I'd called at him so much and other people called at him. I didn't know if the call would yeah, would work at this point, and so I get up to that rock and uh, in how you're like twenty yards from them? I think I think I was like ten yards from at this point, so you're just like sneak right up. They were like directly on the other side of the rock, and the rock kind of was like a it was like a triangle pretty much, and on the north end of the triangle is where I went. And I was like the point of the triangle and I kind of stuck my hands on it, and I looked around the other side and directly on the other side of the triangle, probably five yards off the rock, there was a flock of them and I could see like four or five turkeys. Now, were you not afraid you were gonna spook them by peeking your head around? Well, I did it like as slow as you could, and I had a mask on, and I didn't really realize they were that close. Yeah, yeah, and they were that rock. It was kind of weird. It was like the there was a lower side of it, and then you go to the other side and it was like four or five foot the ground was four or five foot higher, like there was like dirt stuck up against it. So I was below him, still on that rock, and I could just see I could just see him right up there on that little plateau there, and uh so I just kind of like creep back behind the rock, and I can tell they're moving over towards me, and so I just stick my gun up and I hear him clucking, and the first turkey that pops out, I could tell he was a long beard. And I looked at him for a really long time, even though I could have shot him, just because I did not want to, yeah, shoot a jake or shoot a hen or something. And he started going back and forth at like five yards, and finally I got a really good look at him, and I could tell he was one hundred percent a long beard. And about that time, he sees me right there in front of him, and he turns and just is about to just starts to run. But it was too late. He was already just like I mean, I had my I mean I was already hunkered down on him. All I had to do is pull the trigger, and uh yep, got him, got him. I think that's pretty good woodsmanship. Yeah, yeah, and turkey know how to know not to call, not to mess around. I mean, I won't even go over there. I don't even want to go over there. Yeah, it's just too many people, you know. 01:18:34 Speaker 2: But uh, yeah it was. It was a nice, nice gobbler and cook it tonight. 01:18:39 Speaker 1: I bet there's snakes Deluxe right in that area. Oh yeah, I actually found one, like probably well, yeah, you found the road right where I killed it, probably like three hundred yards from it. Yeah. A live copper head. Yeah, yeah, a live one. I've only been uh, I've only been struck at and actually bit unintentionally one time, like thinking about being in a place with a lot of snakes, going back to Snake's Great Turkey story. One time while deer hunting and it was cool in October, I had a copperhead bite my rubber boot. I didn't even know it was there. It's a little one, A little bitty guy just felt something like tap my boot and I looked down. I was like, dad, got that thing bit me? Anyway, I was thinking about bear out there and Snake Country. Yep, we are all the time. Hey, thank you Brad for coming. Yeah, it starts when starts meet Either live tour is on. If you're listening to this, you're we're there. But you can still buy tickets to shows. Uh oh yeah, Josh made Josh Pilmaker Josh Lambridge Spillmaker made ten did did this strike you as odd when he walked in there in hats? 01:19:54 Speaker 6: This guy loves scoons your. 01:19:55 Speaker 1: Nets, So yeah so Josh Josh Lambridge Spilmmaker made ten coonskin hats that are gonna be given away one at each live tour event for the winner of the al Hooting contest. So good job, Josh, good job. But yeah, Brad, thanks for coming man, thanks for bringing the snakes. 01:20:18 Speaker 2: You wind incredible show. 01:20:21 Speaker 1: And yes, yeah yeah, we're gonna just have We're just gonna have to have him come back, just to no doubt. It's like, hey, I'll bring every time we can guess yes, yes, wow, great, Thanks guys,

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