Doesn't really count, but I went to dump some old bread at the corner of our property when leaving to meet friends last night and heard something rustling in the bushes by my landlord's house. It was crunching the leaves too slow to be a cat, mouse/rat or squirrel so I figured it had to be a snake. Grabbed the flashlight and looked where I heard it last and saw a black and white tail section of a snake, threw a chunk of bark in the bushes and it crawled up on the ledge....
great, a rattle snake.
Went in the house to grab the .22 but snagged the pellet gun since it's on the side of the house facing the neighbors. It's a pita trying to aim and shoot from the hip with one hand while holding the flashlight with the other
but I *think* I hit it in the head. Wherever I did hit it at least slowed it down and got it docile enough that I could pull it off with the shovel and chop off the head. I went to leave about 10 minutes later and the body was still full on crawling around the driveway so I stuck a piece of firewood on it and it still slithered out from underneath it! Thought for a second and remembered my landlord had a steel wheel sitting nearby, so I snagged it and stuck it on the body so it'd be there when I got home so I could snag the rattles.
Oddly, something started chewing on the rattles so I don't know if the last one is the end, but I count 9-10 rattles still, depending on how you count them. The body with head was over 36 inches, pretty good size for around here!
