If Wade Bale is having a lucky day, he’ll see groups of grown fishermen running frantically toward him on the banks of the Deschutes River – and away from a rattlesnake.

The Great Basin or Northern Pacific rattlesnakes that sun themselves on the banks of the Deschutes are an easy bag for Bale.

”I’ll catch them and take them back (to the fishermen),” Bale said. ”I’ll show them there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Sure, Bale admits, they could put you in the hospital if they bit you, but they’re not likely to do that. And within no time, this South African native will have convinced at least some of the fishermen there’s nothing to fear.

That’s just part of what Wade Bale does.

Bale, a 33-year-old paramedic with the Redmond Fire Department, has a passion for snakes that winds its way into every facet of his life.

He’s even earned himself a reputation with law enforcement agencies around the county. If you have a snake problem – call Wade Bale.

”He’s a good mythbuster,” said Ron Hawkin, a captain with the Redmond Fire Department. Every few months, Hawkin will pass on a call to Bale to take care of a rattler on a hole at a golf course, or to coax one from underneath a car in a parking lot.

”I wish every shift someone called me about a rattlesnake problem,” Bale said. ”But it doesn’t happen as often as I’d like it to,” he said.

Recently, Bale was even asked by Ron Oliver, chief of the Redmond Fire Department, to go to the Gulf region to help with relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina. His skills with snakes could have been very helpful, Oliver said.

Bale was excited about the chance to use his knowledge to help both people and snakes that had been displaced by the storm.

But the plan was foiled because Bale is from South Africa and not a U.S. citizen.

”I was disappointed because it was a chance to use my expertise,” Bale said.

Bale’s expertise comes from years of working with and studying snakes, and it all began in South Africa when he was 8.

Bale got a small brown house snake and from then on he was hooked, he said.

When apartheid ended in South Africa in 1992, Bale and his family moved to Tanzania, where they opened a snake park, which his parents still run.

It was Bale’s job to collect the snakes.

It wasn’t long before he was hunting the wilderness of Tanzania for some of the most dangerous snakes in the world.

Black and green mambas, Gaboon vipers and Egyptian cobras topped the list of snakes needed for the park. Although Bale has never been bitten by a poisonous snake, there were some very close calls as he searched for them.

Once he and a friend stumbled upon a 12-foot female black mamba. She crawled up a tree and tried to hide.

The two had forgotten their antivenom, but capturing such a snake was too great an opportunity to let go by.

Bale closed in on the tree and slowly moved his 4-foot ”grabstick” in on the snake. Within minutes he was able to snag the snake near its head and pull it from the tree. He carefully slipped it into a waiting bag.

If he were to have been bitten, it’s likely he would have died. The men were far from help and a bite from a black mamba could have killed him within an hour.

Bale said there is nothing mystical about him that makes it easy for him to work with snakes.

”For most people, there is just a fear of the unknown,” he said.

He has spent years coming to understand and respect snakes, he said.

He’s still afraid of some snakes, but just like learning to drive a car, you can learn to use your fear to help you survive.

”Fear is a good thing as long as it is a counselor and not a jailer,” he said.

Bale’s wife, Susan, said that through her relationship with Bale she has come to understand snakes, too.

Her husband keeps numerous snakes at their Redmond home, she said. They used to be in the house, but since the birth of their daughter, Scout, now 2 years old, the snakes live in a trailer outside.

”I don’t love them, but I’m not scared of them,” Susan Bale said.

The family has several Great Basin and Northern Pacific rattlesnakes from around Central Oregon and also pythons, vipers and boa constrictors from elsewhere in the world.

Wade Bale said he is occasionally bitten by his snakes. Throughout his life, he’s been bitten by thousands of nonpoisonous snakes, he added.

”It doesn’t matter if they bite you,” he said. ”It’s like a bunch of little needles.”

But Bale said he recently got a shock when a 16-foot reticulated python he keeps at his home bit him on the head.

”This one can be temperamental,” he said.

It all began innocently enough. The snake was shedding its skin and Bale leaned over to help by pulling some pieces off. He took his eyes off the snake’s head. A number one snake no-no.

He turned to look just as the wide-open mouth of the snake came flying toward him.

”I got quite a lot of teeth,” he said. ”I had visions of snakes without a head but it’s not the snake’s fault. I felt stupid because I knew better.”

Susan and Scout Bale were nearby watching.

”I just kind of looked at him and went to get a towel and he said, ‘Bring the camera when you come back,’” she said.

Susan Bale said it’s easy not to fear snakes with Wade around because he’s not afraid.

Their daughter, Scout, has no fear either, she said.

She’ll ask her father to drape the snakes around her shoulders, Susan Bale said.

”She understands them,” Bale said. ”Fear is instilled in us, and she is going to grow up without it.”

Wade Bale said it’s not his mission to dispel fears about snakes, but his co-workers said he has that effect.

”I just trust him,” said Hawkin.

Once the fire department got a call that a red-tailed boa constrictor was sunbathing in the middle of a neighborhood street.

Bale brought the snake back to the station and held it in his lap for hours, Hawkin said.

”Wade always says somebody has to like them,” said Hawkin. ”And he has assisted all of us who have a fear, to not have a fear.”