Rob Fox
A Florida man who has the primary and extremely rad occupation of killing pythons for a living nearly got taken down by his mightiest foe yet. Snake Hunter and, really, freedom fighter Mike Kimmel found the beast around 11:00 a.m. and carefully walked alongside it to gauge its length. (state-contracted python hunters like Kimmel sometimes get bonuses for the length of their kill.)
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According to Kimmel, the monstrous python, which he called 150 pounds of solid muscle, was 17 feet long and wasn’t scared by the hunter in the slightest. Kimmel took to his Instagram, where he goes by @PythonCowboy (a name that somehow wasn’t taken by a porn star), to detail his battle with a python so huge it could get you a first down on 3rd and 4 just by falling forward.
Yesterday’s solo #Everglades islands python hunt was another one for the books! At 8am I headed out into the swamp on my 14’ jon boat in search of an invasive #ManEater and at 11am I found her…. she wasn’t coming without a fight lol. I noticed her almost immediately as soon as we crossed paths, I could barely contain my excitement. She definitely was not afraid of me and started to slowly cruise through the vegetation as I carefully walked next to her trying to gauge exactly how large she was… because of all the grass and weeds it was hard to tell but I could tell she was an absolute monster. Her being tangled in vegetation makes the capture that much more difficult, a snake this size will use the vegetation as leverage and can literally pull you into the swamp, no stopping 150lbs of SOLID muscle. I knew going for her head first would be the easiest and safest capture method but I couldn’t turn down the chance to grab her by the tail and dance with the devil herself! As soon as I grabbed ahold of her I sealed my fate lol… no turning back now, she was coming for me! She immediately started to battle it out, taking strikes and pulling me into some tall grass with her, making it difficult to dodge her strikes… she was able to successfully get a bite on me. Only got me once but that’s all it took… I was punctured quite deep on my bicep and forearm, piercing an artery and hitting some nerves, I was lucky she didn’t latch on and that I was able to pull out of it. After loosing about a gallon of blood, lol, I was able to tire her out and get her under control. I then used a snake bag I had on my waist to tourniquet my arm because I was getting worried about how much blood I was loosing, better safe then sorry. I then had to drag all 150lbs of her alive, working to control my breathing so I didn’t pass out from blood loss and the extreme heat that day, I would have been screwed. After getting her to my boat, where my suppressed .22 pistol was, I was able to euthanize her before leaving (I didn’t have the proper bags for live transport because she was too large lol). Unofficial measurement: 17’ WITH kinks #RECORDBREAKER? Videos and more info to come!!
A couple thoughts:
1. You’re doing God’s work, Python Cowboy.
2. “I had to control my breathing to carry the 17-foot, 150-pound apex predator I captured through the swamp so that I didn’t pass out from blood loss because it bit through my artery while I was wrestling it into submission” is a level of badass I really cannot even begin to comprehend.
3. But seriously it seems like there were a lot of unnecessary steps in this capture. Can these guys not just walk out into a swamp with a shotgun and blow a python’s head off before bagging it?
