Each year since 1958, on the second full weekend of March, the Sweetwater, Texas “Jaycees” (the local chapter of the Junior Chamber) have hosted the annual World’s Largest Rattlesnake Roundup*. This event draws as many as thousands of people to the otherwise sleepy town of Sweetwater, Texas to trek into the west Texas wilderness, round up rattlesnakes, bring them to the storied Nolan County Coliseum, kill them, and indulge in related festivities. Such is the magnitude of this occasion that both Walmart and Brookshire’s grocery store put up a display, sponsored by Coors beer, to usher in the event.
As an erstwhile city slicker and carpetbagger to Texas from Washington by way of Nevada, one of my first orders of business en route to becoming a bona fide local yokel was to take in the 66th Annual Sweetwater Jaycees World’s Largest Rattlesnake Roundup during the second weekend of March, 2024. Having witnessed the majestic pomp and circumstance, and been transformed thereby, I returned on Saturday, March 15th of 2025 for my second annual pilgrimage to this illustrious affair.
Prior to relocating to Texas, I had been shamefully unaware that any such thing as a rattlesnake roundup existed. As it turns out, a rattlesnake roundup is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin: snake hunters round up rattlesnakes for a princely bounty of $20 per pound for the first 3,000 pounds and $13 per pound for the next 5,000 pounds, with an 8,000 pound limit. The snakes, or at least some number thereof, are brought to the Nolan County Coliseum to be weighed, measured, displayed, milked for venom, skinned, or cooked. For a reasonable fee, one can take a bus tour to the hunting grounds to observe the snakes in their natural habitat and witness their capture, but for the less adventurous, a modest $10 admission fee gives you access to the grounds of the Nolan County Coliseum from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Vendors from all around west-central Texas are on hand to peddle their wares and culinary delicacies, and an additional $5 will gain you entry to the Sweetwater Rifle and Pistol Club gun show from the hours of 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
Being a night shift wagie who clocks out at 6:00 AM, I had a post-work shower, put on my Saturday best, and arrived at the Nolan County Coliseum minutes after 8:00 AM. If you’re comfortable walking up to half a mile to the entrance, you can park for anywhere between free and $10 (with proceeds going to support any number of local civic organizations) along Elm Street on your way to the Coliseum, but being a lazy son of a bitch, I drove right up to the gate and paid the requisite $10 to park on the grounds.
Arriving as I did shortly after opening time, the outdoor vendors were still in the process of setting up. During the lunchtime and dinnertime rushes, the line for, say, a turkey leg or Bourbon chicken sandwich can run as much as half an hour.
This year I arrived prior to the opening of the gun show, and departed after taking in the other roundup festivities in order to obtain adequate sleep for the following day’s work, and was consequently unable to attend. However, if this year’s show was anything like 2024, there was a fine assortment of modern and vintage firearms, knives, ammunition, and relevant accouterments on hand, available for purchase from both licensed FFLs, and private sellers. In 2024, the mood was rather decidedly in favor of the Trump presidential campaign.
Upon entering the Coliseum, one must take a moment to survey the nearly-overwhelming bounty before them.
We can purchase official souvenirs, products from a variety of vendors, view a snake handling demonstration, check out the milking station, observe the skinning pit (or even skin our own freshly killed rattlesnake, for a reasonable fee), or watch as the snakes are weighed and measured at the research station. If having a dedicated Coors beer display in the local Walmart was not enough to impress upon you the gravity of what you are about to witness, permit me to inform you that, per tradition, none other than Miss Texas 2024 was on hand to solemnify the proceedings.
Not to be overshadowed by Miss Texas, each year a local belle is crowned Miss Snake Charmer, and 2025’s winner made appearances at the milking station and snake handling demonstration.
As an unofficially official local yokel, it would be gauche of me to make a showy display of entering the skinning pit to separate the skin from the flesh of a fresh, local rattlesnake. But as you can see, the punters can flay their very own rattlesnake, beheaded only moments before, and take the skin with them as a souvenir.
A short walk from the skinning pit, one can take in a snake handling demonstration at various times throughout the day. Arriving early, as I did, I attended the morning’s first demonstration. In addition to rattlesnakes, the audience was introduced to some non-venomous species.
Having spent a couple of hours taking in the bacchanalia heretofore described, I got in line early to ensure my place at the Jaycee Cook Shack for my portion of fried rattlesnake right when the kitchen opened at 11:00 AM. While the Jaycees disclaim any liability for those who have sampled the available adult beverages, a half dozen varieties of canned beer were offered by a third party vendor as an accompaniment to the seasoned, fried rattlesnake, with or without french fries. Twenty minutes later, I walked out with a $5 can of Shiner Bock and a $10 single serving of fried rattlesnake and french fries.
So what does rattlesnake taste like, you may ask? Well… not like chicken. It’s tough, somewhat slimy, with a fairly neutral flavor reminiscent of overcooked pork. A friendly local who I met in the queue tells me it’s similar to alligator, but having not yet sampled that particular delicacy, I cannot confirm or deny that comparison.
Speaking of the friendly locals, the roundup draws visitors from all around west-central Texas, and I ate my fried rattlesnake in the company of a father-son duo that had journeyed all the way from Tyler, and had randomly struck up a conversation with me as I exited the Coliseum. The atmosphere is convivial, and the people are some of the nicest you will ever meet. For a social recluse like your humble narrator, that can be either good or bad, but for better or worse, southern hospitality is alive and well.
With that, I bade farewell to the Nolan County Coliseum for another year. Presuming I have not pulled up stakes before then, I will look forward to the 68th Annual Sweetwater, Texas Jaycees World’s Largest Rattlesnake Roundup.
*I’m still unclear on who, exactly, keeps track of the global rattlesnake roundup statistics, but weight totals for our local event going back to 2016 are available online. The 2025 total was 3,521 pounds.
Wait a second, you’re telling me that Whacking Day is REAL?
How about Weasel Stomping Day?
My first thought.
I’m glad I wasn’t alone in that.
The Great Bloom County Snake Massacre was a one-off, not annual.
@ Neph: hell, no. I thought that when I saw the article title on the front page.
Best part of the ep? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ-7c7ryljs
Jesus. I thought that these things had gone the way of geek shows and Queen for a Day. We’re really not all that far out of the woods, are we?
I have a soft spot in my cold black heart for long standing community traditions. I was going to say something about without the killing of hundreds of animals, and then I remember all of the rib cook offs, perch fests, and clambakes that are the summer cultural highlights here.
Food festivals aren’t quite genocide as sport.
In my youth I would have considered something like this to be the most provincial, bumpkin event in recorded history, but I defy anyone to visit and not have a good time.
Then again, I’ve never had any fondness of heart for snakes. “Genocide” might be overselling it a bit. We’re not at any loss for rattlers out here in west Texas. If you ever get bit by one and get antivenin at the ER, you can probably thank some hillbilly from flyover country for having captured and milked the snake from which the antidote was derived.
Sean:
I’m trying to look at the good portion of it, they are at least serving the snake as food. Although I doubt that’s the end for all of the animals.
It’s not really the killing of thousands of animals I object to – no one who hunts, fishes, and eats meat like I do has any moral leg to stand on there. Rather, it’s the utterly specious, fear-driven ‘reasoning’ behind the entire spectacle. “We’re afraid of snakes, so let’s go kill a bunch of them!” Lovely.
The fact that they have to limit people to eight thousand pounds of rattlesnakes indicates to me that the population is thriving.
Not a fan of rattlesnakes, I have shot (with a .410) and driven over more than a few.
One bit my dads dog Neeno, who then needed two anti-venom shots and it left a scar about three inches long down his snout. Fuck ’em.
That’s… not why they do rattlesnake roundups. They’re considered a pest species here, and it’s basically an excuse to incentive people to turn them into an economic benefit. In boom years (the 2016 total pound was over 16,000 compared to the comparatively paltry 3,521 this year), some of them get released back into the wild, but otherwise, the skins are sold, the meat is sold, the venom is sold, and the event drives some tourist money into the pockets of the locals.
Average weight is 3-6 lbs. 3,521 lbs is a good number of rattlers wrangled up in a day.
That absolutely is why they do rattlesnake roundups. They’re considered a pest species by people who are afraid of them – the agricultural depredation from snakes (any species) across the entire United States is unmeasurably low.
If there were any real economic benefit to killing rattlesnakes for the skins and meat, people would be breeding them domestically, as they do with Burmese Pythons in some places in the upper midwest.
Meh, I wouldn’t ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by greed and boredom, but to each their own.
Get a load of the snake handler here!
Hell, they used to have annual WATERSNAKE roundups in Pennsylvania not even a century ago. Because the watersnakes were eating the fish sportsmen wanted to catch, was the excuse. Which is crazy, since very few watersnakes in PA ever grow to a size capable of downing a keeper.
Now the brown watersnakes in the south . . .
But as you remarked in this subthread, it’s all about people being afraid of snakes. Me, whenever I spotted a snake my first thought was to catch it. I thought they were cool creatures. Even kept some as a kid (what used to be called DeKay’s snakes) for some years.
Wow, Miss Texas doesn’t have an easy job.
I would assume handling venomous reptiles isn’t the worst she has to put up with.
Handling flesh cylinders is probably a prerequisite
view a snake handling demonstration
Praise JEEZUS!
BY SNAKE HANDLING MEAN …
I killed a ~four foot long rattlesnake in my driveway in Montana. I did not skin it, and I sure as Hell did not eat it. It smelled awful; a sort of powerful ammonia adjacent stink.
Rattlesnakes: good that they warn you, bad that they readily bite you
From what I understand they’re not all that aggressive if you leave them alone, but the trouble is it’s fairly easy to disturb one without intending to.
Comment *Tres…WYA?
I like that better than a nest of rattlers!
Stereotype much?
All day long.
Evan’s hips recoil at all of that. Wretch.
(That’s damn impressive. In at least two ways, she ain’t built like normal folk. (I may have internally underestimated how fat ‘average’ Americans are.)
Alligator tastes chicken-adjacent. But also very chewy, bordering on rubbery.
But I liked it. Not enough to search it out or anything.
Wholly agreed. I did have crocodile in a croc farm in Australia. That was fun. It’s certainly more of the mental fun of trying something new, rather than the meat itself, but it’s not bad. Has its own character, for sure.
I can’t tell white fish apart, for the most part. But there *is* a Black angle. Libs think they’re all alike, too.
Insane!
Trump’s order says states have mounted “illegitimate impediments” to domestic energy production for oil, natural gas, nuclear power and other energy sources. Notably, the order derisively placed the term “climate change” in quotation marks.
Heresy!
Meh, this is why we have federalism, IMO. If states want to hamstring themselves with imbecilic regulations, they should be free to do so, to the extent they aren’t impeding other states.
I’d say the issue is when they’re trying to mandate things to companies and facilities that are not in the state.
And that more companies aren’t willing to just drop states more frequently.
Yeah, that’s the caveat with the “to the extent they aren’t impeding other states.” Technically speaking, CA emissions mandates don’t apply to vehicles sold anywhere else in the country, but since CA is such a large market, most manufacturers are going to tailor their offerings to the CA regs rather than pull out of the state or maintain separate production lines. I’m not sure if I necessarily favor a federal fix for that.
Sorry we were just on a roll and lost count. We have best people from DC, the business world and academia calculating the economic impact down to the fraction a percent!
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-trump-tariffs-trade-war-04-10-25/card/trump-tariffs-on-china-actually-145-says-white-house-3vTUxU4R2ZHKFMcEsoW6
This looks like a fun event. Thanks Pat!
Well… not like chicken. It’s tough, somewhat slimy, with a fairly neutral flavor reminiscent of overcooked pork. A friendly local who I met in the queue tells me it’s similar to alligator, but having not yet sampled that particular delicacy, I cannot confirm or deny that comparison.
I’ve had gator. I don’t remember it being tough but otherwise that’s a good description.
I have only had fried gator, it wasn’t tough and more of a fish texture.
The fact that they have to limit people to eight thousand pounds of rattlesnakes indicates to me that the population is thriving.
“They tell me” many of these rattlesnake wranglers, far from eradicating snakes indiscriminately, cultivate the dens in order to ensure the next year’s crop.
SNAKE FARM
Like a good neighbor?
Cobra effect?
That looks wild as hell but seems like great time to be had. I remember as a kid walking around barefooted in Mississippi until my Mom noticed and told me that I’m to always wear shoes because unlike the Midwest, there are poisonous snakes in the Delta area.
Insert Indy gif here.
Man, the options traders must be going nuts.
https://www.google.com/finance/quote/VIX:INDEXCBOE?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjJ1emLgM6MAxVQFVkFHWpXIhYQ3ecFegQIKBAf&window=1M
No thanks. Rattlesnakes give me the heeby jeebies ever since I nearly stepped on one while backpacking in the Sierra. That said, I ate rattlesnake when I was in high school volunteering at an orphanage in Mexico (a prelude to enslaving orphans as monocle polishers like a good Glib). It tasted pretty good and was tender. It must depend on how you cook it.
Last year we had a lot of rodents around here, which makes me think this year there will be a lot of snakes. I’ve already seen a few out on the roads. Most of them aren’t rattlesnakes, but every now and then I see one.
Thanks for writing that up Pat. Can’t say I enjoy the killing part too much, but am glad they’re selling the skins and generating revenue for the town.
I’ve been to a few reptile festivals that are similar to this, except snakes/lizards/etc are for sale instead. Including venomous in a lot of states…. probably Texas included.
The smell at the skinning table had to have been heinous.
One note: My understanding is that more people are bitten by severed rattlesnake heads than by live rattlesnakes. Stupids try to be all daring and such poking their fingers in and out of a rattlesnake’s mouth as the head reflexively bites. Until it gets them.
I knew a guy (ran a towing company) who permanently lost the use of a finger thanks to that sort of idiocy.
I don’t know about live snakes vs. dead, but I do know that the #1 most common way to get bitten by a snake is to try to handle it. If one just leaves snakes alone, they’re perfectly safe from them.
Only two people bled at class today. I was one of them. I got into a fight with a lobster and got cut by the edge of the shell. At the time I was breaking open the tails after we’d poached them. It’ not as embarassing as what happened to the other guy.
The other guy just cut himself.
Your lobster gloves aren’t cut-resistant?
We had to follow CIA training protocol. Their vinyl gloves are inferior.
Latex generally doesn’t count as cut-resistant.
Hahaha. Good one Neph.
“Fight the lobster on its own terms, colonizer!”
Are you still called a furry if your fursona is a lobster?
Jarf, I think that might make you a…crusty? 🦞
Hmm, I like it!
Jarflax – technically that would be a ‘Scalie’. I’m no happier about knowing this than you are now.
Did you get to pick your own live lobster to poach?
We did pick out which live lobster to process. One one knife cut from me (to euthenize it) then it was hands on twist and break to part it out until cleaning the main cavity.
The tails were all poached together and three of us shelled them. It was during that stage that I got cut. It’s a really minor injury, I’m playing it up for laughs.
I’ve also cut myself pretty good on a lobster shell. It happens.
Bastiat’s Window from the top rope:
Trading super valuable fiat currency for dirty worthless actual goods makes you poorer! Cash in the mattress is the pathway to wealth!
China actually does have malice against us and has massively ramped up production to get people to buy their stuff. Not just here, but in Europe. Dependence on them is bad.
That said , I don’t really know what to do about it.
You know what’s even cheaper than cheap labor? Good automation!
I don’t think that’s true.
It didn’t used to be true, almost to the point that economists were taking it as an axiom. That may have changed.
At dentist about to get an old filling drilled out.
Triple that novocaine, Doc, because you’ve got a soulless ginger in the chair.
I thought gingers supposedly felt less pain?
Fake news! I was half-kneeling on my right knee this morning when it popped audibly. Hurt like hell! I’m still limping. 😖
Ouch, I am sorry to hear that!
Higher resistance to anesthesia also.
Now my eye is twitching.
Higher pain tolerance, not that they feel less. It’s how they fuel their rage.
This story has as many “dafuq?” lines as a SF Wednesday post.
https://nypost.com/2025/04/10/us-news/sicko-accused-of-sexually-abusing-corpse-on-nyc-subway-sources/
Question – Did he bring the corpse, was the corpse created by general subway exposure, or did he make the corpse in order to abuse it?
One of the many Dafuq lines:
And another:
It does NOT “take all kinds,” but we have them. 😑
This sounds like the plot you’d find on a detective series. But on Netflix, I don’t think CBS would allow it.
I especially like
She obviously learned from Miracle Max.
Damn, she gave him a last cigarette?
The Corpse I Fell in Love With (with the lyrics).
Necrophilia Rag
Alice Cooper has a sad that you didn’t pick him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Prf0WRi4-ug
Trading super valuable fiat currency for dirty worthless actual goods makes you poorer!
Yes, exactly. Trading money for something you can make more valuable is just dumb.
Trump is saving the bunnies!
I can’t help but notice that the Washington Times chose a pic of a beagle there.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/untitled-design-48-1200×630.jpg
https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/oX3ZxKcAQ6qrxd7jTUG5OA.U3eWHtq_4iBhK_GcLTSXfX
https://nypost.com/2025/04/10/us-news/pa-judge-sonya-mcknight-convicted-of-shooting-sleeping-boyfriend-in-the-head/
Ignoring warning signs is a bad idea.
Not nearly hot enough for that level of crazy.