Just a black snake about 5' long or so, my girls were outside playing with me and my wife and he decided he wanted to play too.
I prefer not to just kill things for no reason, this was for safety, but I figured I would try to make use of it. I skinned it and gutted it, but I'm slow and a novice so it was about 2-2.5 hours from death to freezer. Was this too long? He had a smell kinda like fish, I shot him with .22 snake shot and the way he was laying I got him in the side too. After skinning I cut of the tail because I couldn't get the skin off of it there, then I gutted him and I keep only from the neck down to right about were I pelleted his side. (Kept maybe 2 feet of snake)
My concerns with the meet:
Did I take too long before freezer? The fish smell concerns me
Did I taint the meat by cutting of tail or by pelleting his side? I believe I cut tail off below **** (about 98% sure, I just can't reallu check now as I buried what I didn't keep)
As for the skin, I did my best to remove all the membrain stuff from the underside, I tacked it to a board, covered in salt. And left in sun, will this keep it til I can get a tanning kit in a week? I might try to make a knife sheath for my old hickory butcher knife if I can.
If it matters, its 86* outside, 55% humidity, feels like is 90*. I used an old tree stump outside to do the work so it was in the sun in that 2-2.5 hour time frame (cloud cover was in and out)