DOTHAN EAGLE (Alabama) 30 March 08 Get rattled at annual rodeo
When Carrie Morgan first signed up as special projects coordinator for the city of Opp, she didn’t think handling poisonous snakes would be part of the job description.
But it is Opp after all, the rattlesnake capital of Alabama, and it’s become one of her favorite parts of the job.
A few years ago, after watching others control snakes using only long sticks and their hands, Morgan decided that men shouldn’t have all the fun.
“It was something I really wanted to give a try,” she said. “I only pick them up if I feel completely comfortable.”
Once she started learning the tricks of the trade from her co-workers, Morgan discovered she wasn’t the first in her family to handle snakes.
“I had no idea that my granddaddy used to do it until he started telling all these stories,” she said.
Although she’s never had a close call, Morgan learned the hard way that high heels are not part of the recommended uniform.
“Last year, we were showing a snake on the grass (near the cages on a trailer outside city hall) when one took off for the bushes,” said Don Childre, Opp’s city planning director. “Carrie was trying to back up, but her heels kept marring and getting stuck in the grass.”
After that experience, Morgan changed her attire. “I never get near them now without these,” she said, pointing to her knee-high waders.
She’s also learned several facts about snakes, such as you can’t tell how old a snake is by its rattles. A snake gets a rattle each time it sheds its skin, which happens three or four times a year, she said. She can also distinguish a male from a female by the shape near its tail.
Morgan can also be distinguished by her tools. She proudly wields her snake stick adorned
with a pink ribbon. The stick is actually one of her father’s old golf clubs welded into a flat point perfect for holding snakes down by the back of their necks.
Once the rattlesnake is secured, the handler picks up the snake by using a thumb and forefinger on either side of the head.
“It’s not too difficult, you just have to know what you’re doing,” Childre said, as he held up an eastern diamond back rattlesnake he estimated to weigh about 7 pounds.
Capturing the snakes in the wild is a different story.
“Snake hunting has come a long way,” he said. “These days, it’s an exact science.”
Childre said he believes the local tradition first started with a Geneva County dentist who owned a large farm and enjoyed hunting quail. After many of his prized bird dogs were bitten by rattlesnakes, Dr. Howell, who is the father of Montgomery-area news anchor Bob Howell, decided to invent a way to get rid of the snakes.
Snakes often burrow down into gopher tortoise holes, so Howell experimented by throwing an orange filled with gasoline into the hole to drive the snake out, Childre said.
The process was very time consuming. After some time, the technique included running a length of hose into the hole to listen for the telltale sound of rattling. Also an old-fashioned door knob was added to the end for hunters to distinguish between a snake and the hard shell of a tortoise.
“People are continually looking for better ideas, so somebody came up with the idea to add a small treble hook to the outside of the hose to bring the snake up,” Childre said. “It’s set at an angle where it just catches them under the skin and doesn’t hurt them.
“It’s a lot like catching bass.”
Most snake hunters don’t use gas anymore, and even when they did, they used no more than two teaspoons, which is the perfect amount to draw the snake out of the hole, Childre said.
“Some groups foster the idea that there are hordes of people running through the woods in South Alabama, pouring gasoline in every hold we can find, but that just isn’t true,” he said. “A small number of people actually bring in the snakes, and the methods have improved greatly.”
Childre said snake hunting caught on in South Alabama for a variety of reasons.
“Hunters needed something to do between deer and turkey season,” he said. “It’s also a geological deal. A fall line that’s a 45-degree angle from Auburn makes this the perfect habitat for snakes.”
Pine forests and thickets are common homes for snakes. New growth and debris attracts rodents, which in turn attract snakes, he said.
Although timber rattlers are occasionally found, the eastern diamond back is the most common.
The Opp Rattlesnake Rodeo is the only snake-themed festival in Alabama, but some are held in Georgia and Oklahoma. The country’s oldest gathering is in Sweetwater, Texas. Childre recently attended the event and brought back a photo of a wrangler walking through a giant cage where the floor was completely covered by western diamond back rattlers. He slid his feet along the bottom to stir the snakes and prevent the bottom ones from being suffocated and crushed, according to Childre.
“You couldn’t do that to ours,” he said. “The eastern diamond back is much more aggressive, and they’d eat you alive.”
Get rattled at annual rodeo

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