Just found this guy in my yard. Not a rattler, but I don't know what he is.

Pine snake !

Bull snake??

Look at the time shown on this? 2:46 AM? It's 10:45 PM EST! Where is the Moparts server - in England?

Looks like a pacific gopher snake, pretty common out west. They are good to have around.
Just yesterday On our back lawn was the largest (45") San Francisco Garter Snake I have ever seen. They are unique as their belly and stripe down the back is turquoise and the stripes down the sides are red and charcoal black. Very striking snake. This one needed to shed and colors were not a vibrant as some I've seen.

I have caught a bunch of Gopher Snakes in the mountains and high deserts in SO CA, they are good snake to have around as they eat mice and rats and I've been told rattlers and sidewinders as well That one looks a lot lighter in color than the CA Gopher and Bull snakes, maybe it is the camera and computer making this one look a lot lighter in color The ones I caught and saw in CA where yellow and brown, long and skinny and not afraid of people
They will bite you once or twice when you first pick them up but they become very calm and docile after that My wife hates all kinds of snakes but she had a big garden and we had animals that she fed hay, chicken feeds and pig food so the snakes would helped keep the mice down, my Son and Daughter would chase her with them when they where younger when I brought one home

I can't image many people letting a snake bite them a few times, just to see if it'll calm down or not.
If I pick up a snake & just wave it about a little, my Wife will run into the house.

Just have to make sure your tetanus is up to date. Also, most reptiles carry some form of sommenela so it’s a good thing to wash your hands after handling one. As far as their bite, it’s not so bad.

here we have many snakes including gopher, rattlers, king, garter, racers, sharp tail and occasionally rubber boa. Creek at bottom of hill, mountains above us. Thus we get two migrations a year, up hill in the fall, down in the spring. We've found them all. Seems when birds are nesting the snakes seek them out as I've found them climbing trees (best they can) along with alligator lizards.
One thing about gopher snakes, at first glance their pattern is similar to a pacific rattler, but the rattler is not shiny like the gopher. Regardless the gopher has learned to mimic the rattler by flattening his head wide, hissing and rearing back so as to strike, which they will lash out, but seldom hit. I usually give them all room and call the dogs in as I've traind the dogs to be wary of all snakes.

I think the Bull snakes are not the breed same as the Gopher snakes, I caught a baby Bull snake less than 12 inches long and it was acting really aggressive coiling up, striking and hissing a bunch I caught it and took it to work to see if one of our supervisors,, he was raised in that area and was a American Indian who knew a lot about that area. he told me it was a Bull snake, not a Gopher snake
I've never seen a Gopher snake act like that, especially the hissing and striking.
I took it back home and let him go.
I do not let snakes bite me intentionally, their strikes where faster than my hands where when I was catching them Gopher snakes have a single row of teeth in the upper part of their jaws that are needle sharp but very short, thank goodness
The things I did was I was a kid I'm lucky to still be alive

Looks like a gopher snake to me.
We have one about that same size Ive seen around here and in the wash behind our house a few times

Take your pick !

https://www.google.com/search?clien...Q-BYwJXoECBYQLQ&biw=1054&bih=474

Interesting! I've heard some old timers call gopher snakes, bull snakes. Your post made me look it up, seems Bull Snakes are a a sub-species of gopher snakes and live west of the Mississippi rv, and east of the rocky mtns. Probably not in Ca or Az.
Funny you mentioned being alive as a kid I saw something about catching rattlers by grabbing by the tail (if they are crawling away and not coiled to strike) and snatching them up and spinning them quickly for a good minute. It pretty much kills them, they can still strike, best to put in a gunny sack with a rock and toss in a bucket of water for a day or two. Once tanned the unmarred and un holed skin makes good hat bands. I will not again try the above procedure and I don't recommend trying it.

When I was real young, under ten yrs. old, I would spend several weeks up to two months with my Grandma and cousins in the mountain between Desert Hot Springs and Hemet ,CA at a National Forest campground near Hemet Lake, CA. There was another family from Los Angles that would spend most of the summers. there every year also. Their 12yr old Son was wanting to become a Herpetoligst (SP?) (specializing in snakes and lizards) so he would catch snakes to sell to a local guy who did things with them that I don't know about or remember about now.
He taught me how to catch snakes including using a small forked tree limb to catch Rattle Snakes, both Timber and the smaller Pacific Western rattle snakes.
We needed to be very careful catching them, we carried snake bags to carry them back to his camp ground so he could put them in a old glass fish tank until his Dad would take them to the San Diego Zoo once or twice each summer so they could make anti venom from them
They ended up moving up there permanently several years later when he was in high school and he got bit by a Timber rattlesnake and gave up pursuing that career after that