Tuesday, May 29th 2007.
So there I was again…things where starting to look like I was a boy scout leader, myself Tanner (15 and a BIG boy, 6’1” or so..) and the twin 13 year old boys where on a great herping adventure to Iraan TX for the night. Yes, I tried to talk them all out of it because of the moon, however after talking to John Hollister I figured, heck why not right? He said to walk the cuts, shine like crazy and avoid road herping, so that was the plan. Plans go the way of the wind. NEVER give twins that can complete each others sentences large amounts of any stimulant (sugar, caffeine, cheese burgers…) on the drive down we saw 2 DOR bull snakes, 1 AOR Atrox, that after a few initial lessons in ‘How Not To Get Bit’ we moved the little guy (2.5’) off the road and moved on. A couple miles later we came across another AOR Atrox that was the same size, however VERY brownish, pretty neat, (this was all as you enter Crane county down 385) if you pay a heck of a lot of attention you will notice a little road called Ma Earp road, it has a funny name and is only about 2 miles long, and next to a large dilapidated old stone building just north of crane on 385, it is also the only road that heads to the left (east I think) off of 385 in a long ways. The Quail Ranch I belive is at the end of the road, if you follow the dirt road where the pavement ends. I never pass on the way to Iraan without hitting this road at least once, it paid off with one of the darkest and most striking Atrox I have ever seen, just beautiful silver surrounding an almost uniformly dark brown and black body, the silver outlining the diamond formations on its back. A bossy, nippy little guy also, he was moved off the road after much admiration.
A while longer, and 2 bathroom breaks (about 15 minutes apart, you can measure time by the amount of caffeinated beverage a kid drinks.) we arrived in the big city of Iraan TX. I shot up Kinder-Morgan road, I know it by no other name, but there are massive rock cuts on this road, and no one has ever bothered us, very friendly folks and workers in the area if you get there before dark, stop and say high to anyone you see, they are happy to tell you horror stories of seeing rattlers (every thing is a rattler..) all over the place. The rabbits where in full swing running to and fro and occasionally, apparently tired with there mediocre life, committing suicide under the good old ford focus, at a whole 30 MPH.
With much excitement, and a quick check of batteries, everyone was dually armed with a snake bag in there back pocket, a net, hook or set of tongs, and a flashlight with new batteries. 6 miles of hiking later, up, down, over, around across, and through rock cuts, and it nearing 0130 we had found nothing but some cactus, and a weird little unidentifiable grey froggy thing resembling in some aspects a African dwarf water frog. This was squirreled away for further studies. Slightly disheartened we finally gave up and decided to run the rest of the 17 miles of rocks, rock cuts, and such from the car. Road herping paid off, paid off big. About half way up a big hill we came across on the shoulder a large Molossus, and one of the prettiest animals I have ever seen. The twins held up there copy of Snakes of Texas, and proudly pointed out that it looked “exactly like this one, but prettier”. This snake now resides proudly in my collection, gorgeous animal really, truly stunning didn’t rattle once during the capture process, at roughly 0138 or so when it was caught it was still rather warm outside I would say roughly 71* locally, winds out of the SW@ 9mph, clear with a bright moon.
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To you im just the crazy snake guy, but to some I'm a 'Herp'.
