Hornet nest

Those caddis are vicious killers!! actually, they are like trout candy. I fish them every time I get.... :)
 
Florida has some big rattle snakes. Before I retired I worked for a power company that merged with Florida Power. One of my jobs was assessing damage after major storms. During one visit to Florida we stayed at a place near Diamond Back Golf course. In the pro shop they had a mounted rattler that was unbelievably huge! I talked with the pro and he showed me pictures of rattlers that were the length of truck tailgates. He said that during construction the snakes were everywhere as they were clearing for the course.
 
I had a good size rat snake in my shed for a while, the first time I went in there it scared the wits out of me, then I saw it was just a rat snake and figured he's good to keep around to take care of the mice.

A week later I went in there and forgot about him, scared the wits out of me again.
that happened again for a third time and I said...that things going, I'm going to end up having a heart attack if I leave him in here!

I'd say most all the rattlers I've come upon were either on the move, away from me or they announced themselves rattling, I've never had any dangerous encounters...knock on wood.
The small ones are kind of tasty, I tried eating a six footer once and it was like chewing on a goodyear tire.
 
Steve, those cow ants are some of then meanest, toughest little creatures God ever put on the earth! I have heard some horror stories about folks getting stung/bit by them one.
 
The 6'3'' Eastern Diamondback, I was talking about killing. When I saw that sucker, I had just turned off the highway on to the lane where we lived on the farm. There was a huge Pecan tree at the end of the lane by the mailboxes. I am looking down the lane, (it was about 250 yds long) I see what I thought was big limb fell out of the Pecan tree, and then,..................that limb began to move and I realized it was a snake! I came down the lane as fast as I could go and slid my truck up on the snake. I wasn't sure if I got him or if I did where he was. So I roll down the window and lean out and I got him under the front drivers tire about a foot back from his head and he was POed!! He was striking the tire and that milky crap running down my tire.

So I thought for a second and I thought if I go to the house and get my gun someone could walk up to my truck thinking something was wrong and get struck. So I go back to my tool box and get two hammers out. A straight claw and a 26oz. framing hammer I used all the time. I got him to stretch all the length he could have being pinned under the tire. I reached out with the straight claw and got it behind his head and drove it with the framing hammer as deep as it could go.

I got back in the truck and backed off of him. He was dead he just didn't know it. So I threw him in the back of my truck and I see my wife's car at my in-laws house. So I pulled up and went to the front door and hollered thru the screen to my wife you have got to see what I just killed out by the mailboxes. So I am six foot and as I said this one was 6'3'' minus the head and rattles. So I am holding this snake up over my head so I don't have to drag to much of him!

Steve, this was the funny part as I approached the screen door with the snake my wife opens the screen door. My mother in law is sitting in her recliner and sees the snake and like I said, he didn't really know he was dead so he is writhing around on the hammer a bit! My mother in law was 300+ lbs., she jumped out of that chair and was in the other room before I got to the top step going in the den!!! She is screaming get that snake out of here and shrieking. I couldn't help but laugh!!
I skinit him out and before I could put the meat in the freezer my wife said, Oh H3!! No he is not going in my freezer or you are leaving!!! So never got a chance to try that one. But the little one are gooooooooooood eating!!!
 
Ha ha ha...about twenty years ago I was bow hunting near Ceder Key and shot a timber rattler maybe 2-2.5 feet long.
Took his head right off, so I put him in a paper bag and threw him in the cooler. later that night we were all sitting around the fire and I remembered that snake....Hey, wait till you see what I got in the cooler!

So I get that bag and tell everyone about shooting this timber rattler, as everybody patiently waited to see this prize,
I reach in the bag, pull it out and as I'm doing that, that thing wrapped itself all around my arm.
I let out a rather loud 'WTF' and whipped my arm, slinging that thing thru the air. we never did find it..man was that hilarious afterwards.
Thing is, it didn't even have a head but was still kicking hours later.
 
Yep, I always heard a snake a snake does not die until sundown, or in your case till you slung him half way to hades! I was in a hurry when I finally got to skinin that big one out and I like to never got him to hold still for me to split him down the belly. The dang meat was still skirimin once I pulled his skin.

I have seen fresh frog legs try to jump slap out of the pan!! There is something I haven't had in years. When we was kids we used to go gigging at night with a head lamp. During the day we would thump em with a sling shot but, you had to get right on them as they will sink and sometimes you loose em that way!! Oh the trial and tribulations of a misspent youth!! Ha Ha!!
 
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