Those gorgeous,coveted copperheads!

[Kituwa]

All i do is take a small sharp pointed pair of scissors and start at the butt hole and slit up the belly to the head. Then i work my fingersaround the meat midway on the snake and pull the skin off.I never even use a knife.Dont use salt, just air dry.I lay the skin scale side on a board and put a pin at the head end and another at the tail end, then start going side to side.That way you can get the skin straight.Most skins have a line down the center that you can see on the flesh side that you can go by to get it straight.Doesnt really matter much if its not straight though as you soak it in water right before you put it on the bow but i still like to dry them straight.Yournoc may have better info as he does a lot of skins.

[YORNOC]

Once clean and dried, good to go. As said by Matt above, not too difficult. I do use a knife though, some skins are not as durable and if you pull too hard they can tear. So I do like Matt and work my fingers in there and start to seperate skin from carcass. just do a little knife work at the sticking points and then keep pulling.The vent and head usually needs a little knife work.
If I'm skinning a lot of snakes at one time, I will keep a bucket of salt water to drop the skins in until I can clean them. It helps keep bacteria down. But no salt needed to dry or preserve them.

[Jack Ripper]

Me and my neighbors have killed so many, we hardly ever see one ove a foot long anymore. Real nice skins you got there. Maybe next time I get a big one I will give it a try.

[Iowabowhunter]

I got the creepy crawlies goin up my spine....can't stand snakes, good on ya for taking those one's out!

[Buranurra]

Originally posted by YORNOC:
I flesh them,with the spoon, then wash well with a very mild dish detergent. This degreases some of the fat content also on the skin surface. Then rinse extremely well with cold water.
Lay them scale side down on a large, thick piece of cardboard or wood and tack it down with pushpins. Do not stretch the skin too tight when pinning, just a bit. Otherwise when it dries it will either pull the pins out or tear the skin.Copperheads are kinda delicate.  When dry, I trim the very outer edges, then roll them up in a ziplock bag.

THis is really interesting indeed. Just one question, on the pic where you have pinned the skin it looks like scale side up to my ignorant view?

[pamike]

could not stop looking at these purty snakes but that is as close as i get - dont like those things!!!

[JamesKerr]

Nice looking skins. I don't mind snakes that much but skinning one would give me the creeps. Think I'll just stay with paying someone to put skins on any of my bows.

[YORNOC]

Jason, it is flesh side up. When it dries the whitish flesh turns clear showing the colors through.

[Kingsnake]

Just piling on to urge caution when handling ANY venomous snake.  Even though copperheads aren't at the top of the list as far as toxoicity in the U.S., the hemotoxins can occasionally result in necrosis....not good for anybody, but ESPECIALLY not good for bowhunters.  We need those fingers for shooting!  

Anyhow, there a numerous incidents of painful/damaging injuries from so-called "dead" snakes.  Please be careful, friends...

Kingsnake  

[Warden609]

Very nice!!

[YORNOC]

Originally posted by Kingsnake:
Just piling on to urge caution when handling ANY venomous snake.  Even though copperheads aren't at the top of the list as far as toxoicity in the U.S., the hemotoxins can occasionally result in necrosis....not good for anybody, but ESPECIALLY not good for bowhunters.  We need those fingers for shooting!  

Anyhow, there a numerous incidents of painful/damaging injuries from so-called "dead" snakes.  Please be careful, friends...

Kingsnake      

Absolutely. Latex gloves are used (as when skinning any game if possible) and the fangs are clipped off unless I'm planning to clean the skeleton.
Good point, caution is to be used everyone.

[eagleone]

oooooo pretty

[Buranurra]

Originally posted by YORNOC:
Jason, it is flesh side up. When it dries the whitish flesh turns clear showing the colors through.

THank mate, great info.

Around 30 years ago I had to kill a Tiger snake in my parents backyard (we get loads in Western Australia) It is illegal to kill snakes here now) but I was given permission by the ranger. My Pop (Grandfather) told me how to coax it out. A saucer of beer with a raw egg cracked in it.

It came out and I pinned it and cut off the head. I then skinned it and was amazed that the strength of the snake that kept moving for around half an hour afterwards, even the mouth kept opening and shutting for a little while. It was quite unsettling that the headless body was twisting throughout the skinning and then continued afterwards.

My Pop told me afterwards that the best way to kill them was to whip the snake with a length of reo (rebar) as this would break the back.

Obviously this was pre internet so I salted and used a commercial tanning solution which turned the skin a blue colour! It is a pity as the tiger snake has a great pattern.

I didn't think about the residual venom and I guess I am lucky as the Tiger snake is one of the most aggressive and venomous snakes in the world.

[Kituwa]

My grandpa always told me the best way to catch a live snake was to grab him by his eye sockets and they cant bite ya,lol.Also he said if ya spit tobacco juice right betwixt their eyes it would split their head in two,lol.Seriously,just use common since when handling them.Wear gloves and make sure they are good and dead.They are capable of striking you long after they are dead, dont know if they would still inject you or not but you dont want to find out.A rattler hates its rattles touched,they will strike you even after they have their head cutt off.Will stilll make you stain your drawers even without a head,lol.Rattlers are not one you want to get bite by, it is very bad!Cotton mouths and copperheads are cousins and have the same type poison, much diffrent than a rattler and they will still leave a nasty bite.And just because you may have been bite once and it wasnt too bad dont mean that the next time it wont be.Sometimes i just burn like a bee sting, sometimes swell a little and other times get very sick.A few times i thought it wasnt going to do much but it hit me bad a few days latter.I do NOT play with snakes at all.I just think i have been cursed as i get bite a lot,just walking in my driveway after dark or fishing around a creek or waterver, never by playing with them.I hate the things,,i bout have a heart attack even if they just gum me,lol.Yournoc,,i will try and put a pic up tomm of that copperhead on the 59.For those that didnt see that other thread a few months ago, yournoc had some great pics of some skinned bows he has done, well worth doing a search for.

[landman]

I'm usually not too squirreled up about snakes and other than cotton mouths which I kill as often as I can, I seldom kill copperheads or rattlers.   I give all of the wide berth though and I'm always looking for old Mr. No Shoulders.

Spiders on the other hand....I hate those damn things and I'm never in the mood, when I see one, to do anything but stomp that thing into spider phuck......

[soy]

They sure are some nice looking skins! too bad that they are spoken for I could sure put a pair to use  

[Quickblood]

Dave is definitely top notch in skinning bows!   Those copperheads are my favorite.

[Kituwa]

Soy, i have one nice copperhead left that is 27 inches I am sure snakewood3 has some nice copperheads too.These will be the normal light colored ones.Yournocs skin in his pic above almost looks like a lot of what we get here that are juvenile cotton mouths.Yournoc has done enough of them to know what a skin will look like over your glass color too or what color paint your limbs might need to make your skins come out a color you want.The one trick about skinning a bow is getting the skin to lay on smooth.Some snakes are near impossible to get real smooth but copperheads are one of the easier ones.Some of the rat snakes are fine looking too.They are a long narrow skin that lets you use most of the skin pattern without cutting it all off the sides.Often you can do a whole bow with one good ratsnake. Yournoc and snakewood3 are both sponsors here too.

[YORNOC]

A big tip to skinning a snake is freeze it. Throw it in a cotton bag or pillow case and put in the freezer. The snakes go dormant, coil up and are gone pretty quickly.
Then partially defrost so that they are still pretty cold, but totally moveable. Less sticky fluid and residue to deal with, things seperate easier and they wont be wrapping around your arm!
If you look in the pic you'll see some frost that developed on the unskinned snakes when I took them outside, still thawing.

Kituwa, I have a big Grey Ratsnake just like you are talking about in the sponser classifieds right now, and a pic of a Tall Tines I did with one awhile back.