When I was working summers in the woods, it was always in rattlesnake country, but they were seldom seen. There were lots of theories about the sound of the chain saws driving them away, the machinery moving about, etc. I think it was more about whether there was a den in the vicinity that meant there were more of them in a particular area. I always thought more about it when I was lying next to a bigger log trying to poke a choker nubbin through a tangle of fir boughs. The question was always, will they rattle, or just grab onto my hand or arm. Yes I saw a few, but most of them were on one landing that had a creek just up the road a hundred feet past where the fuel truck was parked. Saw three of them one night, snakes need water also, so we both retreated, me with an elevated heart rate and they buzzing a warning that they didn't like being disturbed as they crawled into the fill rocks above the culvert.
Usually they were seen when it was early in the morning and colder, so they were not as active and could not crawl out of sight as fast. One story I remember is kind of typical and involved a tree that was marked for cutting but it stood about fifty feet above a creek and on a steep bank. Because of regulations it could not be fallen into the creek and had to go uphill, problem was it leaned downhill a bit. A cable was attached about thirty feet up the trunk and a Cat put tension on it to pull it uphill, but hopefully not on top of the Cat as they didn't have a hundred fifty feet of cable handy. The faller, who was not a real faller, but one of the crew who volunteered, created a path off the the side so he could make a quick escape when the tree started to fall. There were about four or five false starts where the saw was pulled out and the faller ran to the end of the escape trail some forty feet away. Of course when he reached the end of the escape route he stood there to watch the tree. When the tree finally did fall and he put the saw down, he realized there was a rattlesnake coiled up in the very cool morning about two or three feet from where he was standing and had been standing each time he ran down the escape route. It never rattled and never struck, but more elevated heart rate was the order of the day.
I guess the same thing occurred when out deer hunting. In twenty or so years of hunting, I never saw a rattlesnake, although I looked for a lot of them. I did see one camping one time and did see one when out fire fighting one summer in 1961. That is an interesting story in itself, so here it is. The Forest Service in those days would shut down all logging and ask for volunteers to report to the Unemployment office when they would get a big lightning storm, usually with no rain, so lots of little fires, burning snags, etc. That summer I was sent down to Oak Knoll Ranger Station on the Klamath River and the next morning accompanied an older (about 50) Forest Service employee to go out and look for a small fire. This was all before aircraft patrols, so they relied on look out reports.
We were walking across a grassy meadow, with some larger rocks and blackberry bushes, which meant there was a bit of water there. I was following this FS employee, who was a bit overweight, actually quite a bit overweight when he suddenly went straight up in the air and levitated forward about five feet before returning to the ground. My mouth must have been gaping open, because I had never see anyone make that kind of motion in my life, particularly someone in his shape. I stopped and he yelled "snake" as he turned around to look at me. Sure enough he had just about stepped on a large rattler that was sleeping as we walked up on him. We dispatched the snake and it had either eleven or twelve rattled and was about four and a half feet long. I know this sounds like an exaggeration, but I swear that I can see that impossible movement he made as clearly in my mind as if it happened yesterday.
Nope, we never had anti venom on site, guess we just would have had to make a quick run to the hospital, or called for a helicopter. Of course everyone wore high boots and that might have helped. I guess you never worry about something that didn't happen, yellow jacket bees were more of a worry, particularly for the Cat skinners.