Our local rattlesnake, the northern Pacific rattler, ranges from British Columbia to central California and is the only species of rattlesnake found in Washington. I well remember my first rattlesnake encounter some 40 years ago near Alta Lake on a warm late March morning. He might just as well have been six feet with its 11 rattles and the wild death-defying drama of its capture, but they just don't grow that big in this neck of the woods. Of the more than 2,000 northern Pacific rattlers I have looked at, 46.5 inches is the longest I have measured. The average is two to two and one-half feet in length.
Big rattlesnakes have a way of getting bigger when the story is told.
They're all patent fakes. The making of a fake often utilizes the rattlesnake skin that can be stretched another third of its length. The majority of them are python skins with, of course, the rattle missing. Or it's an awesome rattlesnake skin that upon closer inspection reveals several sections of rattlesnake skin cleverly pieced together, thus creating another blockbuster for the record books. More prevelant is the big skin that has somehow disappeared.