Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is a male Hwy. 277 I caught 6/19/06. He was on the road approx. 1 mile south of Carruther's Draw at 9:55 pm. He was the only live snake I saw the entire night. The only other snakes seen that night were a fresh hit juvy Blacktail and a fresh hit Checkered Garter.
This was by far the slowest trip snakewise I have ever had in TX. Here's the totals for 14 nights of hunting.
First the AOR's:
2 atrox
2 nightsnakes
1 longnose
1 alterna
And the DOR's:
3 atrox
1 checkered garter
1 blacktail
The first and last nights were only half nights. The rest of the night I stayed out til 5am except one night I went in early at 3am. At least 5 nights were completely snakeless, no DOR's even. Mostly I hunted 277 but I also did Langtry, Davis Mtns., Black Gap, Sanderson and the Apache Mtns. Needless to say I am very thankful for the altera.

Ah, the old bedroom pic at the herpin' motel. I wonder how many )shots like that are lurking in herper's files...

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...and I think to myself, "What a wonderful world."

That would be the quilt at the Motel 6 Del Rio. It was so nice I almost had to steal it.

Congrats Aaron, Nice Transient adult!

Oh yea, I forgot, and a DOR coralsnake.

Also of intrest there were many sheriffs at 277 and Langtry and I know of no snake hunters that were stopped, even those shining cuts. I was mainly road cruising and it appeared that if you were polite, ie dimmed your lights for oncoming traffic, used your turn signal and pulled off the road you were not stopped. I did this for all cars and often it was a sheriff that was approaching or coming up behind me and I was never stopped. At one point I was walking the big cuts on 277 with my vehicle parked and could not be easily seen from the road. When I got to where I could see my vehicle there was a sheriff and a border patrol inspecting it. I only waved my flashlight at them from afar and they left without even saying a thing. Apparently they are well aware of the snake hunters now.
There was an incident where a parks and wildlife guy stopped a hunter shining cuts on 277. This agent told the hunter that evn walking the cuts was not legal. I called Troy Hibbits and so did the hunter that was stopped. Troy and the hunter were able to find out who the agent was and Troy called either Sinclair or Whittaker and the new agent was informed that he was in error and there was no further incidents that I am aware of. Many thanks to Troy and the hunter.

The way I heard it was that it was a new LE officer that stopped the guy. The next day, when he went to work, the other officers corrected him. Since the incident hasn't repeated itself, I haven't bothered Major Whitaker or Director Sinclair with the issue . . . although I've taken to carrying my letters saying its ok to collect again.

Troy

Thanks for the correction.

AAron, Troy this is the story. My son and I were parked by the side of the road and a truck driving the opposide way made a u-turn and pulled behind us. A man walked up on us without identifying himself and asked if we were catching snakes. We said yes and he asked if we had any and i said no. He "then" said he was the game warden and told us that what we are doing is illegal. I then said that we were walking the cuts and his answer to me was that it's still illegal to do. We needed to get permission and hunt on private land. I told him he was wrong and he asked me for proof otherwise. Rather than get into it with him we just went north a bit and hunted there. The next day I called the state to complain and the person on the phone stated that the officer I needed to talk to wasn't in. I demanded to speak to someone and squeezed out the cell phone number of the person in charge of the officer who stopped us. I spoke with Doug Norman and he stated that the offending game warden was wrong in his statement concerning collecting from the roadside and assured me whe would have a talk with him. I also mentioned that he did not identify himself when approaching the car or have his auxilary light on at any time. This was not too smart as I was legally armed. He also said this was unacceptable practice and needed to be corrected. We were also stopped on our first night be the sheriffs officers in two vehicles. They asked what we were doing parked on the side of the road and we said snake collecting. They said to be carefull out there and were no trouble at all. After that, they would spotlight us whenever they seen us to say hi. The female sheriffs officer was hot. LOL Sheriffs officers and border patrol were all friendly. It was just that one knuckle head warden who needed to be straightened out.
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Steve W.

Aaron,
Congrats on finding that blackheaded 277 blairs, you certainly put in a great effort during a tough, dry year. I went down, from 6-9 thru 6-16, saw only 5 snakes that week, no alterna & no snakes on at least 4 nights. Of course the day I left, Friday the 16th, rains came that night & 2 were found, LOL, but overall, a tough year even in the so-called easy places. Sorry I missed seeing you, perhaps next year we will cross paths again.....John

Thanks John, I am sure we will meet in Sanderson again.

you forgot to log that polish sausage...that musta been pretty exciting ....yeow, this fargin year knocked the crap outtta my average...WTF???

Yes I found a large polish sausage. I did not have any buns or mustard so I was not able to put it to good use.

Here it is. The 277 Red Bluff Kielbasi.

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Steve W.

i like the nice long orange bands, you earned that one aaron!

Thanks Jon, I have a female light Blair's I caught as a juvy south of Red Bluff he will go good with.

Aaron,
Did that snake come out the area with the big burn scar?

Forky

Well he was on the road in front of the burn area and he was in an "S" shape parrallel with the road. Since I didn't think to look for tracks it's impossible to say whether he came from across the street where there was no burn and was turning around at the burn or if he came from the burn and was going back into it.

most of the alterna from there came across the road from west to east. I'm not saying they don't go east to west right there, just that almost every one I know came off that slope on the west.

Forky