Hunter of Florida pythons remembers bloody fight with Burmese snake

A Florida python hunter was bitten by a five-meter-long snake while trying to catch it.
The snake's head was the size of a garden shovel and its teeth cut a vein below his elbow.
Hunter Mike Kimmel managed to force the snake back to his boat and place it in a secure box.

Editor's note: This story was originally published in 2020. The 2024 Florida Python Challenge is currently running through August 18.

The snake's head was the size of a garden shovel and it lunged at hunter Mike Kimmel once, twice, before sinking its curved teeth into his arm, causing blood to spurt in time with his racing heart.

Kimmel was alone on a garbage island deep in the Everglades, searching for the invasive python. He knew the hills of high, dry soil would be fertile hunting grounds as rains in late May raised water levels. He estimated the bundles of muscle in the crunching undergrowth to be about 15 feet long.

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But the licensed python hunter underestimated the snake's reach and took a risk by grabbing it by the tail instead of the head. Teeth designed to impale and hold on to wriggling prey slit a vein under his elbow.

“At this point, my biggest concern is not passing out,” said Kimmel, 32, a Martin County resident whose video of the June 8 encounter shows a breathless struggle with a sharp-tongued predator as big as the mast of a small ship. “I thought about bleeding to death, but I was really afraid of losing consciousness.”

While Florida's unique hunt for Burmese pythons has taken on a Disney-esque veneer with the hype surrounding this year's Python Bowl, and rockers like Ozzy Osbourne and celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey have staged made-for-TV snake-hunting excursions, Kimmel's brief but bloody battle shows just how deadly serious the eradication of this invasive reptile can be.

The ride on the Jungle Cruise is not a quiet affair.

“When you catch something that's bigger than 14 feet, it's no longer a snake, it's a monster,” said Donna Kalil, 57, a licensed python hunter for the South Florida Water Management District. “I like to say I'm very cautious about doing a dangerous thing.”

Kalil estimates she has caught 300 pythons, mostly through the water management district's three-year-old program that pays hunters minimum wage plus length-based bonuses for python hunting up to 40 hours a week.

A python up to 4 feet long will bring in an additional $50, and $25 is added for each additional foot. An additional $200 can be earned for each python caught guarding a nest of eggs.

The longest python Kalil caught was 15.5 feet long.

She was bitten several times, but never had a wound that produced as much blood as Kimmel's, which soaked his pants and shirt and flowed onto the coiled snake and the grass around him.

One of her scariest moments was during a nighttime hunt. She was on a seawall and spotted an 18-foot-long specimen in the water below her. She crept down the bank where it turned on her in the dark.

“I shot her straight in the head with a .44 Magnum,” said Kalil, who used snake shot pellets that didn't even penetrate the skin. “I felt like my life was in danger. Just seeing such a big snake and coming face to face with it was a little scary.”

The snake fled to the grassland and escaped. Another time, a 4-meter-long python grabbed her by the head, but the snake was so strong that it ripped her off the line on which she was hanging “like a rag doll.” She fell 1.5 meters to the ground and landed on her chin, but did not let go of the snake.

Kalil prefers to take others with her on the hunt so that they can provide additional eyes to help her locate the pythons and search for larger snakes.

Kimmel, also a python hunter hired by the district, goes into the swamp alone.

On the Monday morning before the bite, he piloted his 14-foot jon boat through the still waters of the Everglades, stopping at several islands before accidentally stumbling upon the 17-foot boat.

Full of adrenaline, he set up his cameras to capture the shot for the water district's records and his fans on social media. Instead of going for the head, he aimed for the tail. Although the head was somewhat hidden in the bushes, Kimmel admitted he wanted to test his courage, too.

“It showed me its power immediately. I dug my heels into the limestone to stop it and it became a tug of war,” Kimmel said. “From then on, it did what I wanted: It came back and hit me because it gave me the opportunity to get its head.”

He dodged some blows, then again he didn't.

“She got me, son, but I got her,” Kimmel said in a Facebook post as he wrapped his bleeding arm with a cloth snakeskin bag without ever letting go of the python. “Damn, I'm leaking everywhere.”

Kimmel, known on social media by the nickname Python Cowboy, won this year's Florida Python Bowl after catching eight snakes during the tournament. He is also known for his work catching and killing invasive green iguanas, Egyptian geese and feral pigs.

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 across a python nest full of eggs – one of the most significant moments in Kimmel's python-hunting career, he said.

He is not the only python hunter in the county who has gained some notoriety through the program or made it his profession. About 3,000 snakes have been removed from the Everglades since March 2017.

Jason Leon, 31, of Miami, was briefly a county hunter, but years before the program began, he found the state's longest python – 18 feet long. Today, he offers guided python hunts on hovercraft and ATVs. Although Leon says anyone can catch a python, he is aware of the dangers.

“If the snake had bitten (Kimmel) on a major artery, he could have easily bled to death,” Leon said. “I've been in situations where I've been wrapped up several times, and when your arm or leg goes numb and blood flow stops, you lose control.”

Dusty “Wildman” Crum, known for his barefoot snake fights, is a gamekeeper and has a show on the Discovery Channel called “Guardians of the Glades.”

Crum, 40, said the show was on hold because of the coronavirus, but a first-season episode featured a terrifying battle with a 15-foot-long snake that he thought was going to “rip his head off like a Barbie doll.”

Kimmel, who was hunting with Crum that night, had to intervene after the snake wrapped itself around his neck.

“The cowboy came and helped me, and I was a little upset that I wasn't there to help him,” Crum said. “We probably shouldn't go hunting alone, but we do it because we're stubborn men.”

Crum's longest snake was 5.08 meters long.

Kimmel doesn't know exactly how old his latest catch is or how much it weighs because the water management district's check-in station is closed because of the coronavirus. Hunters are asked to freeze their snakes until they can reopen.

However, a rough measurement – including kinks – showed at least 17 feet.

The district record is 17 feet, 5 inches.

Kimmel said he weighs between 120 and 140 pounds and believes the snake may be a similar weight.