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Speak Out: Herping with Dylan

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Crotalusssp on 2007-11-27
I appreciate his apparent enthusiasm, but I am afraid we are looking at a future bite statistic.

venominme on 2007-11-23
I basically was that kid at one point, forked stick and all, so I won’t knock it. I thought he was very respectful to the animal. I’m sure he looked around before spotting this snake, so I wasn’t worried about another snake in the area where he was working. I have seen much worse handling. Those snakes just out in the sun after a recent cold snap are usually pretty complacent and easy to work with if you are calm yourself. That being said, they can strike so fast! Made me want to check out some of his other videos, but it’s all the stuff we did as kids too, probably. It does accurately show how you find these things and it isn’t always in a made for TV perfect spot. You might fall down, slip, get whacked in the face with a branch, etc. That’s what it really looks like in the woods.

jared on 2007-11-22
Man I wondered how long before U tube heroes would start making the site. Man, I just wanna say as in every arena in which humans collect keep or attempt to work with animals, both wild and domesticated, there are good keepers and bad keepers. I feel this may be a case of heart in the right place, head somewhere else. I have seen alot of these videos on youtube {before they started getting posted here) and knew this eventuality was coming. I think he is lining up for a dangerous surprise oneday, and trust me, no explaining before hand EVER descibes it correctly. Again, use more caution when handling wild animals that could potentially end your life.

Jared Watts
Everyone wants to hop the fence and see the polar bear, but no one runs over when he escapes?

EPARR1 on 2007-11-22
I think the video was great! You can call it what you want but he made some great points and although a little rough. He never put himself in any more danger than the average keeper behind closed doors.

Ofcourse they'll never admit it and always knock someone else for doing the same thing they do but will never admit. You know how it goes.

Peace
Eric G.

SCatheris on 2007-11-22
Well he says in some of his other videos (which i watched after seeing this one) that hooks are one shape and one length and are only good for one or two ocasions...you give me a hook and i cause it any way I want. So he says sticks he can find any shape or size. I find a hook to be sooooo much more trustworthy than a stick that could at any moment break especially with timbers that size. I've caught one around that size before and it felt like the broom hand I was using was gonna snap in half! Of course this was a long broom handle.His video of him freehandling a copperhead is insane he just sooo complacent and complacency and hots mix about as well as water and vegtable oil......He's i think about 23 now and he's in college maybe it's just that age group. I'm not gonan be a hipocrit I'm 16 but if I come across any hots I only use my hook and I give them plenty of room for whatever may happen. The enthusiasm is good though I'll give him that. Hots are a direction I want to go but I'm not in hurry to die or be in debt.

agkistrodude on 2007-11-22
Unlike allot of You Tube videos I see, it looked like at least he wanted to make a real fact filled, educational video.It didn't look to me like he was trying to be cool or a "badass with a deadly snake", or letting it crawl around on his face or anything like that.The mistakes were many as has been pointed out, the stick for a snake hook was too much Steve Irwinish. He needs allot more experience, he might be trying to accomplish more than his level of experience should, but I think his mindset was in the right place.Kind of like an 18 yr old that builds his first Mustang or Camaro and thinks hes ready for the NASCAR circuit. His mindset is right but he just doesn't have the experience yet.And someone needs to tell him that. A mentor would be great, but it doesn't look like he has one, so hes trying to do it on his own.I know that if camcorders were around when I was younger and tromping around the swamps and cliff faces that I used to, there would probably be just a few scenes involving a few venomous snakes that would have made some people here scream loudly.(myself included!)Fortunately I made it through it and I hope Dylan does too.Maybe he'll read some of these comments and back off a little and slow down? I'm only basing these comments on what I saw in this video. I haven't seen any of his other ones. Dylan, if you read these posts, FIND A MENTOR !! Quit trying to be the celebrity and instead, learn from the ones that are out there.

Peter on 2007-11-22
Why does everyone nowadays seem to feel that it is ok to "lay hands" on venomous snakes?

When I learned how to work venomous (long, long ago) things like tailing or pinning were considered to be things that people did who were well on their way to winning a ride to the ER or morgue. At any rate something that was only done in rare and exceptional circumstances. Now it seems like nearly everyone (at least those whom end up on video) considers this a reasonable technique for handling. I wonder if this has something to do with how many people are getting bitten nowadays? As Carl K. said "Never be tempted to touch or handle the snake. Everything that needs to be done can be done with hooks, net bags, clamp sticks and transfer boxs." What part of that is so hard to understand? Keep your nose pickers in your pockets if you can't keep them off the snakes.

That buzzing you hear is natures way of telling organisms capable of any sort of thought to keep their apendages to themselves because this snake can kill you. This apparantly does not include a large segment of the human species.

Cbass on 2007-11-21
It didn't look too smooth when he almost fell face first on the snake. I'm grateful he's weilding a stick given the current popularity of free handling these days.

Anonymous on 2007-11-21
Steve Irwin-esque much?

Chris_Harper on 2007-11-21
There are mistakes aplenty in this video. For one, you can tell by his movements and his attention to the camera that he is assuming that there are no other rattlesnakes in the vicinity. He stumbles beside a rock crevice, but doesn't realize that the sound of the rattlesnake that he's carrying may muffle the sound of a smaller specimen under that rock ledge. He also doesn't watch where he puts his hands, or sits. When he first grabs the rattlesnake, he violates a cardinal rule and grabs it just behind the mid-body. I think Dylan is in for a big shock one day. What else do you see?

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