Snake Hunters Bite the Bullet to Find Top-Notch Rattlers for Rodeo

They are not the typical hunter’s weapons, but Jimmy Jones has had his share of success with a piece of water hose, forked stick, duffel bag, gloves, three-pronged hook and a shard of broken glass.
This assorted equipment might not stop a bear, a deer or even a quail, but it has helped Jones catch hundreds of rattlesnakes in the past 34 years.
Jones, who retired from the conservation department in 1994, was still in high school when he caught his first rattlesnake. The noise the snake released from inside its gopher hole caught him by surprise, even though he’d been warned.
This particular noise was not the rattlesnake’s infamous rattle and hiss, but the blowing sound it makes from inside a hole. When the snake feels threatened, it will usually expand its body size to try to intimidate a potential predator. Often, the next warning would be the familiar rattlesnake rattle and hiss.
But Jones learned early it can make just as intimidating a noise from inside the gopher hole, where most rattlesnake hunters concentrate their efforts.
“They told me how they would sound in a gopher hole when they feel threatened,” Jones said while en route to one of the Dale County farms where he hunts for rattlers almost every February for Opp’s annual Rattlesnake Rodeo, scheduled this year for March 1-2 at Channell-Lee Stadium.
“They said the snake would blow 10 times louder than a gopher,” Jones said. “There’s no mistaking the sound, but in my mind I was wondering if I would be able to tell.
“When I heard it, I jumped away from the hole. If you prod him with the hose, he will usually blow up three or four times. About the second time, he will start rattling. He’s telling you, ‘You don’t understand. This is a rattlesnake you’re messing with.’”
Jones became interested in hunting rattlesnakes through his father, J.P. Jones, who started the Rattlesnake Rodeo in 1958. Now 76, his father still hunts snakes, and his son owns the rodeo record for the largest rattlesnake with the 13.8 pounder he caught in 1983.
This year, Jones and his rattler hunter partner, Brad Gavins, have not been able to hit farms in Dale, Geneva and Houston counties as they do most years in the month before the rodeo.
Jones owns Rattlers Taxidermy in Ozark and a deer meat processing business, in addition to his farm, so he has not been able to break away to hit the gopher holes as he’s done almost annually since high school.
They have caught as many as 40 to 50 snakes in one day of hunting, which begins before daybreak and doesn’t end until dark. But an average day nets 15 to 20 catches, he said. When the duo hunts throughout the month of February, they will usually supply the rodeo with 75 to 125 rattlesnakes. Generally, any rattlesnake less than 4 feet in length is released.
Rattler hunting in February can make for long, tough days, Jones said.
“It’s not easy,” he said. “You’re in thick brush and briar patches. I sometimes wonder how many miles we’ve walked in one day.”
Even while at Auburn University, where Jones was a scholarship place-kicker and was nicknamed “Rattler” Jones, he continued to find specimens for the Rattlesnake Rodeo. He even kept one alive in his Sewell Hall athletic dormitory room until the late Coach Ralph “Shug” Jordan made him take it home.
Rattlesnake round-ups, especially the wilder varieties in the Southwest, have drawn unwanted attention from some environmental groups.
Some say the hunters are depleting the supply of rattlesnakes, even though Opp’s Rattlesnake Rodeo began because too many hunting dogs were bitten in the late 1950s.
After 38 years of rattlesnake hunting in the area, Jones said the South’s most infamous reptile is in no danger of extinction.
“We’ve been hunting on mostly farms in the same area for 10 years, and we still catch just as many as we did then,” Jones said. “Some years, we’ll hit a farm, and they’ll produce eight to 10, the next year, we may not find any, five the next year, and 15 the next. Snakes move around sometimes.
“I’ve talked to several biologists, and they tell me only 10 percent of the rattlesnakes are in gopher holes, and we only go for gopher holes. So how are we going to deplete them?”
Jones himself likes to teach a healthy respect for the rattlesnake, but tries to dissuade irrational fears that have been passed through generations.
“When I used to give hunter safety classes in schools, I told them, ‘If your parents always told you not to go out without a cap because a mockingbird would hurt you, you’d grow up afraid of mockingbirds.’
“I told them don’t be afraid of rattlesnakes. Just respect them. There’s no rattlesnake alive that can strike from more than 10 feet away.”