I have a few points to make here Boosh, and a few to reiterate,
First and foremost, the members who have responded to your thread have given you A WEALTH of good information.
From the many other helpful members:
Buy a hook, and learn the tool on your docile snakes and take your time getting comfortable with it.
Watch behaviours as they can be telltale signs of what is to come in the next few seconds.
Snake temperament is as much an individual trait as it can be a species generality.
**Think about adopting an animal that someone else who may no longer have the time, patience, and care you intend to give an animal of this nature.
And the list goes on. Have a second read through!
Some of the opinions you have eluded to are responsible and the right order to be thinking in. If working with venomous reptiles is your dream (for whatever reason) I say go for it, but do it the right way, and always remember your choices affect you, your family and friends, and the entire reptile community.
In the grand scheme of things, you are going to have quite a few more years just working with snakes in general before starting to gain an understanding of the nature of the beast. Behaviour. What long-term care is like. Your boa is going to get very large, and you have yet to learn what that will be like. Without knowing the story behind your king, I'm guessing you haven't handled things like mites, internal parasites, force-feeds, mouth rot, regurgitation's, prolapses, probing, tubing, an escape, etc etc etc. A "difficult" non-venomous will not prepare you for that.
If you choose to pick up a challenging animal after you have taken the proper steps of learning how to use a hook on your calmer animals, awesome. I hope you adopt, and even more so I hope you stick with the animal for it's natural lifespan.
Stick around the forum. And read! A lot of the questions you've asked just need a little research!
I for one look forward to reading about your progress and experiences with your animals over the years as you slowly progress your way up to a respected, knowledgeable, and responsible keeper of whichever animals you choose to collect. Perhaps in a decade it will be you advising others that are wearing the shoes you have on now.
! As for your specific original question, if you're interested in learning methods to hook and handle a venomous snake by working with a similar non-venomous first pick a species that parallels the the ones you eventually hope to work with and learn the species and how they behave.
Perhaps do your research and come back and write a thread telling the community about all the interesting and important to remember facts you've learned about that particular species. Repetition compounds understanding.
Elapids - perhaps one of the aforementioned Rat snakes...
Arboreal Vipers - perhaps an arboreal boa/python...
Terrestrial vipers - start researching on your own and you tell me...
Hope that at least makes you think a little more, it's good for the brain!
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