I was just being silly before cause I did use road kill snakes to skin a bow, but as Sticks and Pearl said you can tell which way is which if you look at the size of the scales. The smaller scales will be toward the tail and the larger ones toward the head, with the largest scales being right in the middle. If your using rattle snake skins, by all means put the tail end toward the tips and the head toward the handle. I got a nice pair 37" long diamondbacks with awesome coon tails on them that I just can't wait to use! Since my bows are never over 64" long or so, these will be plenty to cover the entire back of the bow.