Just because you invite a rattlesnake to enjoy the warmth of your living room, that doesn’t mean it won’t try to bite you, especially if it’s a big, tough western diamondback as pugnacious as one nicknamed “Samson.”
It’s not easy to measure a snake of this size, but this one is easily 6 feet long, quite likely a few inches more, and as big around in the middle as a strong man’s forearm. A rough weight on the snake — using an angler’s scale with the snake inside a wooden crate — put it just under 9 pounds.
While western Oklahoma is best known for its rattlesnake festivals, the venomous vipers can be found statewide, from the prairies to rocky, forested ridges.
With colder than normal temperatures this March, snakes were later coming out of their hibernation, but they are out now — as are the snake hunters who are especially interested in rattlesnakes.
Fitzer lifted the snake from its box inside his home and it curled at the end of his handler’s hook, as if it could make a defensive strike from an impossible midair perch. Later, it showed it could do just that.
That’s why I think I’ve decided on calling him Samson. He’s just so strong; I’ve never seen a western diamondback with this kind of power and strength. Just look at him. You can learn things handling a snake like this, Fitzer said. Normally a snake this size, they’ll stretch out more. They’re just so long and heavy they have a hard time holding themselves up like he does.
