as kids we use to catch anything and every thing in the Escondido hills where we lived, snakes, skunks, possums. tarantula (actually are wolf spiders) but they are pretty big.
caught a few rattlers, diamond backs, they where little so we did not know that they where baby rattlers, no buttons yet, one got loose in the house and bit my mom. was a shallow bite and did not get venom in her. Gopher snakes we would let go under the house to keep the rattlers away, never the less we killed 2 on the side of the house, one about 3ft, and a larger one around 5ft.