Editor’s be aware: This story initially printed in 2020.
The snake’s head was as huge as a backyard spade, lunging at hunter Mike Kimmel as soon as, twice, earlier than sinking its recurved enamel into his arm inflicting blood to spurt in rhythm together with his racing coronary heart.
Alone on a spoil island deep within the Everglades Kimmel had come searching for the invasive python. He knew the mounds of excessive, dry floor could be fertile searching with late Might rains inflicting waters to rise. He estimated the coil of muscle within the crunchy underbrush at about 17 toes.
However the licensed python hunter underestimated its attain and took a threat by grabbing its tail as a substitute of its head. Enamel, engineered to impale and maintain struggling prey, sliced a vein under his elbow.
“At that time, my principal concern will not be blacking out,” stated 32-year-old Kimmel, a Martin County resident whose video of the June 8 encounter reveals a breathless battle with a honed predator as huge round as a small ship’s mast. “Bleeding out crossed my thoughts, however I used to be actually apprehensive about shedding consciousness.”
Whereas Florida’s distinctive Burmese python hunts have taken on a Disneyesque air with the hype of this yr’s showy Python Bowl, and the likes of rocker Ozzy Osbourne and celeb chef Gordon Ramsey taking made-for-TV discipline journeys to hunt for snakes, Kimmel’s transient however bloody battle reveals how lethal critical the eradication of the invasive reptile could be.
It’s no tame trip on the Jungle Cruise.
“Anytime you catch one thing larger than 14 toes, it’s not a snake anymore, it’s a monster,” stated Donna Kalil, 57, a licensed python hunter for the South Florida Water Administration District. “I prefer to say I do a harmful factor in a really cautious means.”
Kalil estimates she’s caught 300 pythons, principally as a part of the water administration district’s 3-year-old program that pays hunters minimal wage as much as 40 hours per week to hunt pythons, plus bonuses primarily based on size.
A python measuring as much as 4-feet-long brings in an additional $50, with a further $25 per foot after that. An extra $200 could be earned for every python caught guarding a nest with eggs.
The longest python Kalil has caught was 15.5 toes.
She’s been bitten a number of instances, however by no means had a wound that drew the sort of blood that Kimmel gushed, soaking his pants and shirt, and spilling onto the coiled snake and grass round him.
One in all her scariest moments was throughout a nighttime hunt. She was on a levy and sighted an estimated 18-footer in water under. She crept down the financial institution the place it turned on her at the hours of darkness.
“I shot it proper within the head with a .44 magnum,” stated Kalil, who was utilizing snake shot bullets that didn’t even penetrate the pores and skin. “I did really feel like my life was at risk. Simply seeing a snake that huge and assembly him face-to-face was a bit spooky.”
The snake fled into overhead sawgrass and received away. One other time, she grabbed a 13-foot python by the pinnacle, but it surely was so sturdy it yanked her off the levy she was on “like a rag doll.” She fell 5 toes to the underside, touchdown on her chin, however didn’t let go of the snake.
Kalil prefers to convey others along with her on hunts, giving her additional eyes to search out the pythons and assist with bigger snakes.
Kimmel, additionally a district-contracted python hunter, goes into the swamp solo.
On the Monday morning earlier than the chunk, he had steered his 14-foot Jon boat via the nonetheless waters of the Everglades, stopping at a number of islands earlier than stumbling upon the 17-footer.
Adrenaline racing, he arrange his cameras to document the seize for water administration district data and his social media followers. As an alternative of reaching for the pinnacle, he went for the tail. Whereas the pinnacle was a bit obscured in brush, Kimmel admits he additionally needed to check his mettle.
“It undoubtedly confirmed me its energy straight away. I dug my heels into the limestone to cease it, and there was a tug of warfare,” Kimmel stated. “From there, it did what I needed it to do, come again and strike at me as a result of it provides me the chance to get its head.”
He dodged a few strikes, then he didn’t.
“She received me son, I received her although,” Kimmel stated in a Fb submit as he used a fabric snake bag to tie up his bleeding arm with out ever letting go of the python. “Rattling, I’m leaking all over the place.”
Kimmel, who goes by the social media moniker Python Cowboy, received this yr’s Florida Python Bowl after catching eight snakes through the match. He’s additionally identified for his work trapping and killing invasive inexperienced iguana, Egyptian geese and feral hogs.
However it’s the python that has made him a social media star with movies and pictures displaying him catching three pythons without delay, and coming upon a python nest stuffed with eggs — some of the important moments in Kimmel’s python searching profession, he stated.
He’s not the one district python hunter who has discovered some quantity of fame via this system or parlayed it right into a career. Since March 2017, about 3,000 snakes have been taken out of the Everglades.
Jason Leon, 31, of Miami, was briefly a district hunter however discovered the state’s record-longest python – 18 toes, 8 inches – years earlier than this system began. He now runs guided python hunts on airboats and ATVs. As a lot as Leon says nabbing a python is a feat anybody can grasp, he acknowledges the hazards.
“If that snake had bitten (Kimmel) in a principal artery, he may have simply bled out,” Leon stated. “I’ve been in conditions the place I’ve been wrapped a number of instances and in case your arm or leg goes useless, and also you lose circulation, you lose management.”
Dusty “Wildman” Crum, who is thought for his barefoot serpent wrangling, is a district hunter and earned a Discovery Channel present known as “Guardians of the Glades.”
Crum, 40, stated the present is on maintain due to the coronavirus however one episode throughout season one captured a daunting struggle he had with a greater than 16-foot snake he thought was “going to take my head off like a Barbie doll.”
Kimmel, who was searching with Crum that evening, needed to step in after the snake wrapped itself round his neck.
“Cowboy got here up and helped me and I used to be sort of upset I wasn’t there to assist him,” Crum stated. “We in all probability shouldn’t go searching by ourselves, however we do as a result of we’re cussed males.”
Crum’s longest snake was 16 toes, 11 inches.
Kimmel doesn’t know precisely how lengthy his latest catch is or how a lot it weighs as a result of the water administration district’s check-in station is closed from the coronavirus. Hunters are being requested to freeze their snakes till it could reopen.
However a tough measurement – with kinks – was no less than 17 toes.
South Florida Water Administration District python hunter Mike Kimmel with an estimated 17-foot python he captured within the Everglades.
The district document is 17 toes, 5 inches.
Kimmel stated he weighs between 130 and 140 kilos and believes the snake could also be the same weight.
He was capable of muscle it again to his Jon boat even with a wounded arm and light-weight head, and get it right into a secured crate.
“I like snakes, and so they must be revered, not feared,” Kimmel stated. “They must be taken for what they’re, a wild animal that may damage you.”
Kimberly Miller is a journalist for The Palm Seashore Publish, a part of the USA Right this moment Community of Florida. She covers actual property and the way development impacts South Florida’s setting. Subscribe to The Filth for a weekly actual property roundup. When you have information ideas, please ship them to [email protected]. Assist help our native journalism, subscribe as we speak.
This text initially appeared on Palm Seashore Publish: Pythons: Florida python hunter remembers battle with Burmese snake