FL: Florida Python hunter recounts bloody battle: “She got me, son”

Hunter of Florida pythons recalls bloody battle with Burmese snake (palmbeachpost.com)

08/15/2024

The snake’s head was as big as a garden spade, lunging at hunter Mike Kimmel once, twice, before sinking its recurved teeth into his arm causing blood to spurt in rhythm with his racing heart.

Alone on a spoil island deep in the Everglades Kimmel had come looking for the invasive python. He knew the mounds of high, dry ground would be fertile hunting with late May rains causing waters to rise. He estimated the coil of muscle in the crunchy underbrush at about 17 feet.

But the licensed python hunter underestimated its reach and took a risk by grabbing its tail instead of its head. Teeth, engineered to impale and hold struggling prey, sliced a vein below his elbow.

“At that point, my main concern is not blacking out,” said 32-year-old Kimmel, a Martin County resident whose video of the June 8 encounter shows a breathless battle with a honed predator as big around as a small ship’s mast. “Bleeding out crossed my mind, but I was really worried about losing consciousness.”

“Anytime you catch something bigger than 14 feet, it’s not a snake anymore, it’s a monster,” said Donna Kalil, 57, a licensed python hunter for the South Florida Water Management District. “I like to say I do a dangerous thing in a very careful way.”

A python measuring up to 4-feet-long brings in an extra $50, with an additional $25 per foot after that. An additional $200 can be earned for each python caught guarding a nest with eggs.

The longest python Kalil has caught was 15.5 feet.

She’s been bitten several times, but never had a wound that drew the kind of blood that Kimmel gushed, soaking his pants and shirt, and spilling onto the coiled snake and grass around him.

One of her scariest moments was during a nighttime hunt. She was on a levy and sighted an estimated 18-footer in water below. She crept down the bank where it turned on her in the dark.

The snake fled into overhead sawgrass and got away. Another time, she grabbed a 13-foot python by the head, but it was so strong it yanked her off the levy she was on “like a rag doll.” She fell 5 feet to the bottom, landing on her chin, but didn’t let go of the snake.

Kimmel, also a district-contracted python hunter, goes into the swamp solo.

On the Monday morning before the bite, he had steered his 14-foot Jon boat through the still waters of the Everglades, stopping at multiple islands before stumbling upon the 17-footer.

Adrenaline racing, he set up his cameras to record the capture for water management district records and his social media fans. Instead of reaching for the head, he went for the tail. While the head was a little obscured in brush, Kimmel admits he also wanted to test his mettle.

“It definitely showed me its power right away. I dug my heels into the limestone to stop it, and there was a tug of war,” Kimmel said. “From there, it did what I wanted it to do, come back and strike at me because it gives me the opportunity to get its head.”

“She got me son, I got her though,” Kimmel said in a Facebook post as he used a cloth snake bag to tie up his bleeding arm without ever letting go of the python. “Damn, I’m leaking everywhere.”

Kimmel, who goes by the social media moniker Python Cowboy, won this year’s Florida Python Bowl after catching eight snakes during the tournament. He is also known for his work trapping and killing invasive green iguana, Egyptian geese and feral hogs.

But it’s the python that has made him a social media star with videos and photos showing him catching three pythons at once, and coming upon a python nest full of eggs — one of the most significant moments in Kimmel’s python hunting career, he said.

He’s not the only district python hunter who has found some amount of fame through the program or parlayed it into a profession. Since March 2017, about 3,000 snakes have been taken out of the Everglades.

“If that snake had bitten (Kimmel) in a main artery, he could have easily bled out,” Leon said. “I’ve been in situations where I’ve been wrapped several times and if your arm or leg goes dead, and you lose circulation, you lose control.”

Dusty “Wildman” Crum, who is known for his barefoot serpent wrangling, is a district hunter and earned a Discovery Channel show called “Guardians of the Glades.”

Crum, 40, said the show is on hold because of the coronavirus but one episode during season one captured a frightening fight he had with a more than 16-foot snake he thought was “going to take my head off like a Barbie doll.”

“Cowboy came up and helped me and I was kind of upset I wasn’t there to help him,” Crum said. “We probably shouldn’t go hunting by ourselves, but we do because we’re stubborn men.”

Crum’s longest snake was 16 feet, 11 inches.