Angry rattlesnake traps Mississippi hunter in his deer stand. The snake became dinner

An avid hunter in north Mississippi saw the tables turned early Saturday, when he discovered a very agitated rattlesnake was with him inside his cramped deer stand.

Mack Ginn of Lexington told McClatchy News the two were together in the 4-foot by 4-foot “shooting house” for 90 minutes before he realized it.

Ginn says he’d been sitting in a swivel chair much of the time, his feet inches from the snake.

“I heard this weird sound, like a loud tree locust, echoing in the shooting house. I thought it might be in the tree, so I looked out the window, but then it sounded like it was coming from the ground,” Ginn told McClatchy.

“When I pulled my head back in, I looked straight down and saw a snake coiled up directly under me, though the gaps in the floor. The farthest I could get away was to jump in the swivel chair.”

This was at 7:45 a.m. on a Saturday, in the middle of 480 wooded acres, and there was not a soul around to help, he says.

So Ginn stood on the rickety chair, watching the snake lunge each time the chair’s seat swiveled under his feet.

Ginn says his only option was to shoot it — which could easily throw him off the chair and onto the floor. Worse still, the “shooting house” has tin walls, so the sound would be deafening.

“I tried to shoot it at almost point blank range and I missed, which made it more agitated,” Ginn said, admitting his ears were instantly ringing.

“Then I put my right hand on the butt of the gun and the other on the trigger, and he struck at the barrel. It stood up to strike again as I pulled the trigger and killed him.”

Ginn says he jumped out of the stand, which is at ground level, and fished the dead rattlesnake out with a long stick. He was about 4-and-a-half feet long, he told McClatchy.

“I feel very blessed,” he said. “It’s by the grace of God that I was not bitten, maybe because it was in hibernation. I didn’t use a flash light, cause I didn’t want to scare the deer.”

The stand, which sits on cinder blocks, is on Ginn family land and is used by the Heaven Hill Hunting Club, he said. The stand hadn’t been occupied in at least a week when the snake was discovered, he said.

In the days since the incident, Ginn says, he has decided to replace the flooring inside to something more solid — without gaps between the boards.

As for the dead snake, Mack Ginn’s brother, John Ginn, picked it up Saturday and took it to a friend, Vendell Benson, with a good rattlesnake recipe.

The snake was still thrashing — minus the head — when they delivered it to him.

Benson, 65, told McClatchy he marinated the snake in seasoning, covered it in corn meal, then fried it in vegetable oil until it floated to the top.

“It tasted just like frog legs,” he said.

This story was originally published January 2, 2020 at 12:27 PM with the headline "Angry rattlesnake traps Mississippi hunter in his deer stand. The snake became dinner."